


the feelings that we hide

by luminouspoes (rosesmallow)



Series: in the winter night sky ships are sailing [3]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Local Idiots Still Pining, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, She/her pronouns, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28744737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosesmallow/pseuds/luminouspoes
Summary: It's been months since the Battle of Crait and the Reader has been avoiding Poe since admitting her feelings before he left for Takodana, but as luck would have it, they're paired on a supply mission together and the trip might break or mend their fractured relationship
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Reader, Poe Dameron/You
Series: in the winter night sky ships are sailing [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2078412
Comments: 25
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I...I don't even know how this happened. Writing these Poe fics is really relaxing to me (even though they're all hurt/comfort so far), and I just...kept adding to this one until we got here. Title is from Drive by Halsey, and brief content warning: mentions of death, and Poe's dangerous self-recklessness.

Ajan Kloss was not your favorite planet. It was always uncomfortably warm, with few rainy days to cool things down. On top of that, there was the humidity which forced you to keep your hair up in a plait to get some much-needed air on your neck.

Right now, though, the weather was bearable. Night has fallen, leaving the sky a beautiful shade of purple and a damp chill hangs in the air, teasing a storm. As you work under one of the shaded areas built from old scrap, taking stock of what medical supplies you still have on hand, your thoughts slip from the present and towards the current state of the Resistance.

You were practically running on fumes, struggling to find weapons, ships, and allies...Crait is still an open wound for so many of you: even though you now know the First Order had quietly been capturing all the Resistance’s allies, the devastation of believing that the galaxy had given up against the First Order’s tyranny still lingers. 

But for you, it’s more than just Crait that lingered like a toothache that wouldn’t go away: it was the week leading up to it, the fear of losing your best friend, the fear of Starkiller base, the grief of losing the New Republic, the terror that had come when the First Order picked off your ships one by one with no plan or hope in sight.

You miss D’qar. 

The war was always a looming presence, but things were so much simpler then. Your hand hesitates over your datapad as you think back to the base you’d first moved to after leaving Lothal. It had been destroyed in an artillery strike from the First Order, another ache to deal with. There were so many memories tied to it, like when Leia first welcomed you to the Resistance, hanging out with Jess as she modified her X-Wing, trading jokes with Snap over lunch, meeting Poe -

“Nope, not thinking about him.” You murmur to yourself, trying to focus on the list in front of you, but once that door is open, it isn't going to close. Poe was the second person to welcome you to the Resistance, had shown you to your quarters, and proudly declared the two of you neighbors after pointing out the close proximity from your room to his. From there, it only went up: you both understood each other perfectly, called each other out on your bullshit, and - as you once told Poe - he did the reckless stuff and you patched him up when he got hurt, which was often.

Then he left for Jakku and everything snowballed after that, and after Crait, you...started avoiding him where you could. It was easy, too, with him running so many supply missions.

So, three months post-Crait, you’re living a mostly Poe-free life and you hate it.

You miss him, miss the way he makes you laugh and how you come to life around him, but the alternative was admitting you’ve been avoiding him and confronting all the things you were determined  _ not _ to confront in the middle of a bloody war.

Unfortunately for you, the galaxy doesn’t seem to share the sentiment, because a knock on the wall interrupts your thoughts. You look up and go rigid, your brain switching off and wishing you luck as you take in the sight of a very sheepish Poe Dameron leaning against the doorway. “Can I come in?” 

You immediately hate how hesitant he sounds: like you’re an anxious droid that would dart away if he comes too close. The comparison isn’t so far off and your brain - which just finished rebooting - is already trying to come up with excuses to get as far away from him as possible.

“I don’t own the sickbay, you don’t have to ask permission.” You say, turning away from him to put your holopad up. Knowing Poe, he probably has injuries of some sort, so you’re already reaching for a medkit.

“Actually, for once I don’t need you to patch me up,” Poe says, entering the room. “But you kind of  _ do  _ own the sickbay. You’re the second in charge here now.”

The easy banter falls off your lips before you can stop yourself. “Keeping tabs on me, Dameron?”

Poe exhales a small, sad laugh as he runs his finger along one of the control panels. “I gotta watch out for you somehow.”

He doesn’t even sound angry and you wish he would, because the quiet sadness hurts you more than any shout or insult ever could. Horrifically, your vision blurs. You’re glad you have your back to him, even as you struggle to get any words out in response.

You furtively wipe away the stray tears as you ask, “Is there something you need, Commander? I was about to cut tonight short.” 

There’s a beat of silence, and then Poe replies casually, returning the false air of professionality, “Actually,  _ Captain,  _ I was looking for someone to join me on a mission.”

You’re still fiddling with a medkit, bottom lip tucked in when he replies and it takes a second for his words to sink in. When they do, your eyes widen and you slowly turn around. “Wait - you don’t - you can’t mean  _ me _ .”

“Why not you? You’re a great medic and you’ve got good instincts.” Your cheeks warm under the praise. He isn’t wrong either, you didn’t get promoted from Lieutenant to Captain for nothing.

However, you’re also stubborn, and the last thing you want is to be stuck in some small ship for a long period of time with Poe, so you argue, “There’s plenty of other people on this base better suited for this mission than I am.” 

“You don’t even know what the mission is yet.” Poe reminds you, his eyes sparkling as he shifts his weight against the doorway. He’s already amused by how annoyed you are. “It might be one that’s perfectly suited for you.”

“Take Black Squadron.” 

“On assignment with Inferno Squad.”

“Take Finn, you  _ like _ Finn.” You add as if that makes him even better suited for the job.

“I like  _ you  _ too, but Finn is on a mission with Rose looking to gather some more recruits from the outer rim,” Poe says, eyes soft. Your heart somersaults at the first half of his sentence, but you squash away any traitorously hopeful thoughts and take a step toward him almost unconsciously. 

“So take Rey.” 

“Rey’s busy with her Jedi training with Leia.”

“Beaumont?” You’re friends with Beaumont and he did good work helping Chewie on Kashyyyk a month ago, he’d probably get on well with Poe too -

But Poe immediately dashes that hope. “He’s helping Rey translate some of the chapters in those textbooks.”

You’re quickly reaching the bottom of the list you’re mentally rifling through of better-suited Resistance members. “Kaydel?”

“You couldn’t tear her away from helping Leia if you tried and we both know it,” Poe says, mimicking you by also taking a step closer, his hands on his hips. 

You grind your palms against your eyes and groan. A pair of warm hands wrap around your wrists and gently pulls your hands away from your eyes. You try to duck your gaze away from Poe, but he’s so close that there’s really nothing else  _ to  _ look at. It reminds you of the night he came back from that horrible mission to Jakku, when you cleaned up his injuries, treated the scar on his cheek - 

“C’mon, Y/N. You know me. If there was someone better suited for the job, I would’ve gone to them.” Poe hesitates and seems to be on the verge of saying something else, but surprisingly loses his nerve. 

“I’m just a medic. I’d be a liability more than anything else.” 

“Just a medic?” Poe echoes too innocently. “Y/N, I’ve  _ seen _ you fire a blaster, and I’m willing to bet you’ve only gotten better at it.”

You swallow. He isn’t wrong, you’ve been practicing more and more ever since Crait. “I’m a terrible pilot,” you offer weakly. 

This seems to get the most of a response out of Poe: the humor fades from his face, expression turning cloudy as he looks away. “Jess doesn’t seem to think so.”

Your mouth drops. You had sworn Jess to secrecy when you asked her last month to teach you how to fly. You hated to go behind Poe’s back, especially since that was something you’d talked about together for months before Jakku. Ever since you told him you wished you knew how to fly, he’d been determined to teach you. 

That hadn’t happened, and since the Resistance was low on pilots after Crait, you wanted to get a head start - but you’d still been too scared to approach Poe about anything, so you’d gone to a reluctant Jessika. 

Evidently, Jessika hadn’t kept her promise about not telling Poe. “She told you?”

“Well, she is my friend and I am her commanding officer and we only have a handful of pilots, so yeah. She told me. She couldn’t tell me enough about this promising new pilot she’s been training.” There’s an edge to his voice now of anger, hurt, and confusion. Your heart shatters in your chest.

You look down at your hands, where he’s still lightly holding your wrists, as shame floods through you. You dug this hole yourself, and for what? Because it was the easy, less scary thing to do?

“I would’ve asked you -” you start, but Poe retracts his hands from yours. The chilly Ajan Kloss air smarts against your skin, and you miss his warmth immediately.

“Since that would involve talking to me, I’m not sure you would’ve,” Poe mutters, taking a step back. Your hand twitches at your side, ready to reach out for him, but you won’t let yourself do it. “I would’ve picked someone else for this, since you obviously…” he exhales through his nostrils, the words paining him to say aloud, “Since you obviously don’t want to be around me, but Leia thought it’d be a good mission for you to start off with.”

You start to protest his accusation, but you stay silent instead. How could you say that wasn’t the case when everything you’ve done in the last three months has said otherwise? “General Organa wants me to start taking missions?” You ask instead, and it strikes you that you can’t tell if it’s disappointment or relief that flickers across Poe’s face.

“Like I said, we’re low on people. We need everyone pulling their weight in missions. Especially good fighters like you.” Poe looks distant, though, like he isn’t all that happy with the arrangement himself.

“What’s the mission for?”

“Kaydel believes some recent intel Inferno Squadron received are coordinates to an old weapons cache. Since our last mission looking for weapons went south and we’re picking up more recruits, we -”

“Really need the extra firepower.” You automatically finish for him, nodding in agreement with your arms folded. The urgency of the Resistance’s depleting supplies isn’t something you can ignore just to avoid some awkward tension between you and Poe. You inhale sharply, plucking up the courage to ask, “When do we leave?”

“First thing tomorrow morning,” Poe answers, an odd expression on his face. “We’ll be taking  _ the Falcon.”  _

You nod. There was a bright side at least:  _ the Falcon  _ was a big ship. If things got too weird, you would have some places to slip away to and catch your breath. “See you then.”

“Yeah,” Poe affirms, and then he’s gone. You watch his retreating figure until it disappears into the distance, and then sink down onto one of the upturned crates and bury your head in your hands.

How did you kriff up your friendship this badly?

* * *

You get up before sunrise the next morning, feeling exhausted. You’d run your conversation with Poe over in your head all night, so you hadn’t gotten much sleep. Guilt still wore at the edges of your consciousness as you dug out a fresh outfit for the mission, the same fatigues everyone else favored in the Resistance. The shirt’s sleeves were too long on you, however, and you had to roll them up. 

Once you were fully dressed with your boots on, you began packing a bag for the mission. You really should have done this last night, but you’d all but fallen into bed with no energy to do anything.

After that’s done, you toss your bag over your shoulder and head out of your quarters, in search of a cup of caf. No way are you starting this mission off uncaffeinated. 

As your feet move of their own accord, treading the familiar route to the mess, your thoughts wander back to Poe and the upcoming mission. You need supplies desperately, but with so many recent missions going sideways, you’re wary about this one. Plus, the idea of having to work with Poe makes your stomach knot - you hate that you’ve hurt him so badly, but you have no idea how to make things right.

_ Hey, sorry I’ve been avoiding you. I think I might love you and that scares the crap out of me. _

Admitting that freely, even in your head, causes your cheeks to heat up. You’d known ever since Lu’lo’s death how much Poe meant to you, but the shape of your love for him seemed to just keep expanding and growing until you weren’t sure what it was anymore. All you knew was that the thought of losing him was enough to terrify you, and you were more than willing to throw down with anyone to defend or protect him.

So caught up in your own thoughts, you nearly walk straight into the man in question. “Oh!” you exclaim, coming up short just shy of colliding into him. He’s standing outside the mess hall with two steaming mugs in his hand.

“I woke up early so I figured I’d grab you some pre-mission caf.” He proffers one of the cups to you, which you take gladly. The warmth of the ceramic is nothing compared to the warmth rising in your chest, spreading throughout your body at the gesture.

“Thanks,” you tell him, taking a long sip. It tastes exactly right. He hasn’t forgotten how you take your caf. You blink, dangerously close to crying at how  _ normal  _ and right this is. “So, the mission?”

Poe pulls out a datapad and sidles up beside you so you can look around his shoulder at the screen while you nurse your morning cup of caffeine. “Pretty simple, it seems. It’s an old pirate’s cache. Chewie said he’s heard of it before, and it seems like it’s abandoned.”

You nod, pooling as much of your focus onto the datapad as you can, and not on how close Poe is standing. “It’s on the outer rim,  _ far  _ out into the outer rim.” You note with a certain amount of hesitance as you look up at Poe from under your eyelashes. “Does the Falcon have enough fuel to get us there and back?” 

Poe runs a hand through his curls in agitation. “Tech crews say yes, but Chewie thinks we’ll be pushing it.”

“I think I know who I’ll be betting on being right.”

“Exactly. So long as we don’t run into any trouble, we should be good to go.”

You try not to snort and fail drastically. Poe shoots you a Look, and you clear your throat. “Sorry, it’s just...when do you ever  _ not  _ run into trouble?” You hold your cup up apologetically. “Thanks for this. Meet you at the Falcon?”

There’s a twinkle of humor and something that veers on worry in his eyes as Poe nods, “Yeah I’ll meet you there.”

You give him a smile and step away from him to head out. Because of this, you miss him whispering to himself, “Which is why I didn’t want you on this mission in the first place.”

* * *

It occurs to you just as the stars turn into lines and the blue storm of hyperspace snaps into view, that you haven’t been in hyperspace in the Falcon since Crait. 

The realization leaves your mouth dry and you cling a little tighter to the seat of the co-pilot’s chair. You worked double-time in the weeks after Crait, tending to wounds from the battle. Most of the medical staff had been lost, and you’d been promoted partially due to your talent and partially out of necessity. 

Poe’s looking over the controls and double-checking the calculations, expression soft as he runs through the math in his head, so he doesn’t immediately notice you’ve gone rigid in your seat. “Okay, so it should be a day’s trip to get there, and a day’s trip to get back.” 

You blanch. A whole day in hyperspace?

When you don’t respond, Poe turns to check if everything’s okay. As soon as he registers your expression, he’s scooting to the edge of his own seat, reaching for you in yours. “Hey. Hey, you okay?”

You shake your head slightly. You simultaneously feel calm and the furthest thing and the Falcon’s cockpit has never seemed smaller. Poe gently wraps his hands around your wrist and tugs lightly, recognition flickering behind his eyes. “C’mere,” he murmurs and you numbly follow his request, standing up on shaky legs. He steadies you with a hand on the small of your back and leads you out of the cockpit, into the seating area. “Deep breathes, alright?”

You inhale sharply as he sits you down on the cot that rests in an alcove. You try not to think of the number of patients you’ve treated at this very spot, and exhale shakily. Poe’s still murmuring things and although you can’t make out most of what he says due to a dull ringing in your head, the sound of his voice is comforting enough to slow the speed of your heart. 

After an undetermined amount of time, the fog slowly begins to clear. You still feel out of it, but most of the panic has passed. Embarrassment immediately takes its place and you bury your head in your hands. “I’m sorry.” Your voice comes out tiny and muffled from beneath your palms.

“Hey, we’re not doing that.” Poe shakes his head, and lightly taps your wrist to get you to look up at him. You reluctantly do so, but you can’t bring yourself to meet his eyes because you don’t want to find pity in them. “You want to talk about what’s wrong?”

You open your mouth to respond with,  _ Absolutely not,  _ but your mouth apparently has other ideas, because you blurt instead, “It’s the first time I’ve been in hyperspace since -” you swallow thickly. “Since Crait.”

It’s Poe’s turn to stiffen, and in your peripheral vision, you can see the ghosts of that battle clawing their way up to his face. No, the ghosts of everything since Starkiller - maybe from even before then.

“I mean, obviously, I have been in hyperspace since -” you swallow thickly. “Not here. Not on the Falcon, and I busied myself with my duties so I didn’t have any time to think about it last time, but I don’t have that here.”

“No patients,” Poe murmurs softly, “Nothing to occupy your mind with.”

You nod glumly.

“Give me time, I could probably injure myself somehow so you have something to do.” Poe quips and you can  _ hear  _ the smile in his voice. You turn to him and find that the smile isn’t as self-assured as it sounded: it’s small and hesitant. This, combined with the caf this morning, tells you he’s trying his best to make this feel  _ normal  _ as if you didn’t spend the last three months avoiding him, but with the obvious rancor in the room, he isn’t sure how far he should take it.

“You better  _ not _ .” You warn with narrowed eyes. “You’re the only one here who knows how to fly this thing.”

“I think Chewie and Rey might disagree with that,” Poe replies with a chuckle. At your confused expression, he quickly explains, “I don’t think either of them trusts me with Han’s ship, entirely.”

“So how’d you manage to convince them to let you take it without supervision?”

Poe runs a hand through his curls, a sheepish laugh escaping his lips. You find yourself unable to stop staring at him anymore, having gone so long without him being a regular presence in your life. “Well, it took a lot of bribing and begging. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I would pay good money to see you beg.” 

Poe hums, “Well, you might, but I think they finally relented just so I’d drop it. Worked out, though. Guess not even a Wookiee can withstand the Dameron charm.”

“The Dameron persistence, more like. Why did you want to take the Falcon so badly, though?” Aside from the fact that it was probably Poe’s dream to fly this ship. Even you couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to fly the legendary ship that helped take down not one, but two Deathstars, and had flown straight into the heart of Starkiller.

Poe’s smile freezes and he huffs out a breath of air. “It’s...big.”

You would laugh if it weren’t for his seriousness. “What?”

He lowers his head, curls falling against your forehead. They look so soft you have to resist the urge to reach out and brush them back. “When the General suggested you for the mission, I tried to get her to pick someone else because you - well, you’d been avoiding me. I didn’t want you to be stuck in the world’s smallest shuttle with someone you didn’t want to be around on top of the stress of your first big mission, so I -”

Tears blur your vision as you finish for him, “You requested the Falcon.”

“Kind of, yeah. Kriff, if I’d known it would freak you out that badly, I would’ve just gone with a regular shuttle but I wanted to make sure you had plenty of space -”

You take his hand and squeeze it. The gesture is enough to make him cut off his own speedy ramble, and he swallows as he looks up at you with soft, remorseful eyes. “I’m sorry you had to come with me.”

“No, you have nothing to be sorry for.” You tell him, finding it hard to get the words out. You don’t deserve his kindness after everything you’ve put him through, without explanation, but he gives it freely anyway. “I have  _ everything  _ to be sorry for, I shouldn’t have pushed you away. It was a coward’s move and I hurt you and that’s - that’s the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

Poe’s quiet for a long time, and you fidget nervously. He’s obviously contemplating something, on the urge of saying something, so you don’t press him, as much as you desperately want to.

Finally, in a low voice, he asks, “Can I ask something?”

You nod.

“Is it...is it because of the Dreadnaught _?” _

You lean back, lips parting in shock. Whatever it was you’d been expecting him to ask, it wasn’t that. “What?”

Poe stands up from the cot suddenly, his hands on his hips, and he’s pacing the length of the room, unable to look at you. “I was going to ask while we were in hyperspace - not because I wanted to push you, but ‘cause in order for this mission to work, in order for me to keep you  _ safe _ , I need to know if you can trust me.”

Your head spins as you stand up to follow him. “Poe, what the hell are you talking about? Of course, I trust you, why wouldn’t-”  _ oh.  _ Your heart sinks faster than you can catch it as it all hits you at once: the uncertainty in his eyes, the guilt that’s blossoming across his face, and perhaps worst of all, the gut-punch realization of how  _ awful  _ your timing to push him away had been.

He takes your silence for a confirmation of some kind and hangs his head. “I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t. I wouldn’t blame you even if you hated me.”

You open and close your mouth a few times, unable to find the words because so much of your focus is drawn to how  _ small  _ he looks and how much that breaks your heart. Finally, you manage to breathe out his name. He shakes his head, not looking up, so you repeat yourself, more firmly and cross the room to him.

When he still won’t look at you, you gently cup his face with your hands and lift so he doesn’t have a choice. Your eyes are watery and it’s a struggle to keep your words steady, not just from the heartache of seeing him like this, but from a wave of old, underlying anger that’s quickly bubbling to the surface, “You are the last person I could ever hate, Poe Dameron.”

“I got people killed, I disobeyed Leia’s orders, I let everyone down -” he squeezes his eyes shut, like the memories pain him. You move closer to him, shaking your head.

“We’re not doing that.” You tell him, echoing his earlier words. “You’re not going to blame yourself any more than you already have.”

“Shouldn’t I blame myself?” Poe snaps, stepping out of your grasp. “After everything, don’t I deserve to -”

“What, die?” You retort sharply, hating how shaky your voice is as your last grasp of control on your anger breaks away. Poe comes up short, his mouth working soundlessly before he finally closes it. You use his surprise to step forward, jabbing a finger at him. “Ever since Lu’lo, you’ve thrown yourself into dangerous situations - over and over and  _ over  _ again, but after Starkiller? It’s almost like you  _ want _ to die.”

“I  _ don’t _ . But if it means I can buy someone else more time or stop the First Order? Yeah, I’d sacrifice myself in a heartbeat.” Poe says, and your blood roars.

“Have you stopped to think about what that would do to  _ us _ ? What your death would do to the General, to Black Squadron, to Finn and Rose and Rey — to  _ me? _ ” You demand, voice rising right along with your tumultuous temper. “Do you have any idea what it’s like knowing your best friend has no value for his own life?”

Poe swallows. “You’ve all lost people before and survived. I don’t think the Resistance would crumble without me, I’m just a fighter pilot.”

“Just a - stars, you really are the only person who doesn’t see it, aren’t you? I saw you, Poe, welcoming people onto _the_ _Raddus_ , trying to lift everyone’s spirits. Hell, I heard you on the Falcon, talking to Finn and Rey, distracting them by telling them what happened to you on Jakku and the Finalizer, making light of your _torture_ so they had something else to think about other than what was left of the Resistance -” 

You shout, a wordless frustrated noise as you drag a hand through your hair. Poe hesitates but starts to take a step forward, probably to comfort you, but you stumble back shaking your head. If he does that, you’ll break, and you can’t break yet because you have more to say. “You keep saying you’re just a pilot and you keep acting like your death is the only good thing you can provide us with. But you are  _ more _ than that.” You inhale sharply. “You gave us hope when we had none, and that’s what rebellions are built on. We  _ need _ you.”

You’re teetering on the edge of something now, of acknowledging the  _ other  _ rancor in the room: what you told him back in your quarters after he returned from Jakku. After he’d left that night to debrief with General Organa, you hadn’t much time to discuss the not entirely platonic speech you’d given him on how much he’d meant to you. It had been a whirlwind of events following that and the most time you’d gotten together after was when Poe arrived to help evacuate your medical frigate to the Raddus.

By that point, you were already angry with him for the repeated and increasingly dangerous stunts he’d thrown himself into - offering himself up as bait, strapping experimental booster engines to his X-Wing after being warned they could kill him, disobeying Leia’s orders....all that so soon after almost losing him forever to the First Order and Kylo Ren was too much.

Poe has nothing to say to that but looks more affected than you expected him to. He exhales shakily, turns from you to scrub his hands down his face. You stare at his back, your chest heaving as another tear slips down your cheek. You swipe it away angrily with the back of your hand and move to sit back down on the cot.

Poe turns back to face you. He looks more desperate and confused than ever before. “Let me get this straight, you’re not mad that I disobeyed the General? The -” he flaps his hands - “Anything that happened over D’Qar?”

“You were an idiot for that, but no -  _ honestly _ Poe, if I stopped talking to you every time you disobeyed the General, we would never talk.”

“Then what, Y/N?” Poe bends down in front of you, resting a hand on your kneecap. 

You try responding a couple of times but nothing comes out. All the courage you felt a minute ago is gone now, and you just want this conversation to be over before you can say something you can’t take back.

There’s no emotion other than conviction in your voice when you answer his earlier question instead, “There’s no one I trust more than you, Poe.” 

His hand slips from your knee as disappointment flickers behind tired eyes, but he quickly fixes a small smile on his face to try and hide behind. It doesn’t work, because you can read him so well, and you know the same is true for him: you can’t hide from him either.

Poe starts to leave but hesitates before he steps into the corridor. “Y’know... I don’t know if I agree with what you said, but I appreciate your faith in me.”

You hold each other’s gaze for a beat, the silence filling up with all the things neither of you is saying. Poe folds first, ducking his head, and then returns to the cockpit, leaving you alone. You fall back against the cot, wondering for the first time if you should have never befriended Poe Dameron.

The thought rolls around on your tongue like bile, but surely it must be a better alternative than the hell you’re both going through right now.

Still, as you close your eyes, desperate for sleep, you already know the answer: for him, the hell is worth it.

  
  


* * *

You wake up...you’re not sure when, but there’s a crick in your neck and your arms and legs are sore, so you assume you’ve been out for a while. At some point, a blanket had found its way to you. It’s thin and smells musky, but you don’t remember having one when you fell asleep, which means -

A smile tugs on the corners of your lips as affection blossoms through you like a sip of warm caf. He’s too damn endearing for his own good, you decide, sliding out from under the blanket. You pad through the sitting room and into the cockpit and are surprised to find Poe out cold in the pilot’s seat.

“That cannot be comfortable.” You murmur to yourself, but you don’t want to wake him either. He doesn’t get enough rest back on Ajan Kloss - you haven’t been talking, but you know it’s a fact anyway because you’ve heard people mention him being around to offer help at practically all hours of the day and night.

Plus, you haven’t seen him look so at peace in ages. This time when you get the urge to brush back some loose curls, you don’t fight it. What you do fight is the impulse to press a kiss to the top of his head - instead, you turn round and go fetch the blanket he’d draped on you in your sleep, and return to the cockpit a few seconds later to return the gesture.

You gently tuck it in around him, careful as not to wake him, and then step back to admire your work. It still doesn’t look comfortable to you, but the blanket is at least an improvement. However, now you aren’t sure what you’re going to do. You’re still a little bit tired, but you’re not sure you’ll be able to fall asleep again, or if you want to.

So, you retreat from the cockpit once more in search of something to drink. You skim through the cupboards and light up when you find a stash of Gatalentan tea. It’s not as strong as caf, but you’re not looking for something to wake you up, just something warm to hold. In a few minutes, your tea is steeped and steaming, so you pad back into the cockpit and quietly maneuver into the co-pilot’s seat, bringing your knees up to your chest and holding your mug close.

You nurse on the tea for a long time, well after it’s gone cold. By the time you take a swig of the last dregs, Poe is stirring beside you - but something...isn’t right.

You still as you first hear a low whine escape his lips, and then a string of words that slur together you can’t make out. You drop your legs back into the floor, studying him intently, waiting to see if maybe he’ll fall back into an easy sleep, but you already know he won’t.

His face scrunches up in fear or pain, maybe, and then he mumbles, “Won’t be intimidated by you -” and another low whine escapes his lips. Your heart in your throat, you step out of your seat and into the floor space between the two of you. 

“Poe?” 

He doesn’t budge or stir, but when he murmurs again, you have to grab onto his chair to steady yourself. “No no - leave her out of this -”

For a second, you think back to the night Poe returned from Jakku, his words echoing back to you through time:  _ He knew about you, our friendship, how I -  _

You gently grasp Poe’s shoulder and shake him, “Poe, wake up. It’s just a nightmare.”

Another whimper, then more desperately, “No,  _ no _ -”

“Poe!” You shake him a little too hard this time and he jerks awake with a gasp, hand snatching out to catch your wrist, eyes wide with fear - and then he recognizes it’s you and his hand goes slack, his fingers slipping under the hem of your sleeve, but he doesn’t let go.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were - I thought I was -” he drops his hand from yours entirely and scrubs his face. “Did I wake you?”

You shake your head as you kneel down beside him. “I’ve been up for a while. Are you alright? What was that about?”

Poe leans forward in his seat and the blanket slips from his shoulders. He stares at it, confused before he seems to put two and two together, his eyes softening for a second before he thinks back to what woke him. “It was - it was a nightmare.” He sounds embarrassed as he says it.

“Was it…” you grab the edge of the blanket to pinch the hem of it. “Was it about when you were captured?”

“How did you -?”

“You were talking, in your sleep.” 

Poe groans, “Of course I was. Didn’t reveal any deep dark secrets, did I?” His attempt at humor does nothing to ease your worry. If there’s one thing Poe has mastered besides flying, it’s deflecting bad stuff with an impeccable sense of sarcasm. 

“No, you didn’t.” 

He lets out a huff of air, “There’s that at least.”

You hesitate, unsure of yourself, but you don’t want him to feel like he has to sweep this under the rug. “Do you...do you want to talk about it?”

“Not sure what there is  _ to  _ talk about,” Poe admits quietly. “I already told you what happened when I was captured.” 

Yes, he had, and you still felt a swell of fury any time you thought about him in the hands of those ghouls, being tortured for so long. Threepio had acquired more details through his network of droid spies, offered the data logs to Poe who had quietly taken them and promptly sat them aside without a word. You’d picked them up, though, and skimmed through the logs, tears, and rage clouding your vision as you read through everything the First Order had done to him to get him to break.

“You haven’t told me what you dream of,” you counter, voice just as soft as his. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”

His brow creases, unsure of what to make of this. One second you’re avoiding him, the next you’re shouting at him for being reckless, then you’re pushing him away again, and now you’re looking up at him with  _ that  _ look, the same one you had when he showed up injured on your doorstep after Jakku. He could never name that look, but the word for it always felt like it was on the tip of his tongue, especially after you told him you couldn’t imagine your life without him.

Opening up about things has never come easily to him, it’s easier for him to bear things alone, lest he feels like a burden to others. Helping the people he loved was one thing, but it was much harder to let them do the same for him. So he smiled, he made things seem easy with his sarcasm, and he flew. The stars always made him forget the things that haunted him on the ground.

Yet, opening up to you is something that almost comes  _ easily _ . Maybe it’s because you were always able to read him better than most - you always seemed to recognize the different pitches to his voice, the ones no one else seemed to take note of. You were just as sarcastic as he was, so trying to hide behind that was useless.

Scarier still was the fact that he kept  _ wanting  _ to open up to you. It terrified him, but he kept trying to be open with you. He told you everything that happened with Lu’lo, with Terex, then when he was captured. Hell, Poe’s pretty sure he accidentally mentioned Kijimi that night with you on D’Qar, and he hasn’t told  _ anyone  _ about that in the Resistance except Leia and Snap.

So he answers with the truth, “I was back on  _ The Finalizer.  _ He was there, in my memories again. Then - then we were on Crait when he was facing Luke. But he didn’t stop, he -” Poe closes his eyes, willing the imagined screams out of his head. 

“In your sleep, you said something about...leaving her out of this. Was -” you stop abruptly and try again, “Who did you mean?”

“I thought you said I  _ didn’t _ reveal any deep, dark secrets?” Poe asks, popping one eye open to look at you. 

“Is it a deep, dark secret?” You ask, innocent. Poe studies your face for a moment before looking out at the maelstrom of hyperspace beyond the window - it wasn’t a secret exactly, Black Squadron had been onto him ever since you’d joined the Resistance. He’d been harboring a puppy crush for a long while, but - 

_ “They’re just feelings, Snap!” Poe exclaimed, pushing away the drink Wexley had offered. “They’ll go away, eventually.” _

_ “That’s your plan?” Snap asked, incredulously, taking the drink Poe had refused and knocked it back with ease. “Hoping they go away?” _

_ “I don’t see why it’s a bad plan.” Poe retorted defensively. Sure, it would be great if you returned his feelings and the two of you were...but you didn’t, and he was happy with the way things were now, anyway.  _

_ Snap groaned. “What if she feels the same way?” _

_ Poe laughed. “Trust me, Snap, she doesn’t.” _

_ Snap fixed him with a long, hard stare. “Right, and I’m Grakkus the Hutt.” _

_ “What’s that supposed to mean?” _

_ “We’ve all seen how Y/L/N looks at you,” Snap said with a shake of his head. “Jess and Suralinda have a bet going to see how long it takes for one of you to come out with it.” _

_ Poe skirted past the fact that his friends were apparently gambling on his love life and instead zeroed in on the start of Snap’s sentence. “How does she look at me?” _

_ Snap sighed, “You two really are something else. She looks at you, like -” he looked up at the ceiling of the cantina, trying to conjure up an analogy. Instead of something poetic, he lands on, “She looks at you the way my mom looks at Wedge. Like, really fondly exasperated, like she can’t decide if she wants to throttle you or kiss you.” _

_ Poe almost fell off his barstool, then cleared his throat. “She does  _ not _ look at me like that.” _

_ Snap poured himself another drink, “Keep telling yourself that, Dameron. Let me know how this whole plan of yours goes.” _

Poe’s strategy did not go according to plan, not at all. Because ever since that night, he hadn’t stopped  _ thinking  _ about what Snap said. After that, he started to catch you staring at him across the room - and every time, just as he started to meet your gaze, you’d turn and busy yourself with something else. Then, if he showed up in the sickbay with another injury, you’d scold him the entire time you treated him, with - he now realizes - the same anger threading each word that he just saw bubble over when you yelled at him about the Dreadnaught.

It wasn’t even a secret to the First Order, Kylo Ren had made sure of that. You were a constant in the memories he tore through: the first time Poe met you, moments of your friendship pulled out of time, and then, impossibly, the truth, ripped right out of his heart, before he ever got a chance to truly realize it on his own:

_ “You love her. That won’t save you, and it won’t save her.”  _

Poe runs his fingers through his hair in agitation, a stab of regret and anger lancing through his chest. He should have gotten that realization on his own — maybe figure it out while you were doing something completely mundane, like taking a sip of your caf one morning as the two of you talked in the mess, or maybe when he finally got around to teaching you to fly like he’d wanted to for so long, or perhaps even the next time you patched him up with too much worry clouding your eyes.

Instead, that brute stole his chance. After Ren got the information he wanted, Poe slipped back into unconsciousness, the statement still thudding around like a second heartbeat in his head:  _ you love her. _

By the time he finally got back to D’Qar, his only thought was to see you. He’d shrugged off medics and his feet had moved on their own accord to your quarters, so close to his. Poe could barely walk, he was so exhausted, but everything else had faded when you opened the door. How had he not realized sooner, Poe wondered, when you were probably the most beautiful person he’d ever seen?

Of course the second you’d dragged him to your bed to check on his injuries he’d freaked out: now that the truth was out there, he couldn’t  _ stop  _ thinking about it and he was terrified he would accidentally blurt he loved you right then and there. 

Then you’d said what you’d said and -

Poe swallows, looks back down at you and without thinking, brushes back a strand of your hair. His fingers brush along the shell of your ear, and your breath hitches involuntarily - a noise that would otherwise have gone unnoticed, but the Falcon is so quiet right now that Poe hears it and again -

“It doesn’t have to be,” Poe replies, at last, only half believing his words. He has no idea where the two of you stand right now, but he’s pretty sure an abrupt love confession probably isn’t the ideal next step into repairing your friendship - if that’s even something you want.

“Tell me, then.” There’s an undercurrent to your voice that makes Poe think you already know the answer, you just want him to confirm your suspicions. Somehow, that makes it easier for him.

“You. It was you.”  _ Always you. _ “You were in danger, and I was - I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything but watch - and then he -”

It was what you suspected, but hearing it said aloud doesn’t make it any easier to process. You take Poe’s hand gently and place it just over your heart like he had done for you on D’Qar. “I’m still here. You can’t get rid of me, flyboy.”

“Then why did you leave me?”

The question has fallen from his lips before he can think better of it. His hand stills over your heart, feeling the shift in its beat. He can’t take the words back, though, so he watches expectantly as you drop your eyes to his knees, taking a second to compose yourself.

“Because I was...scared.” You admit lowly, still unable to look at him. “I don’t want to lose you and I almost did. And if Jakku wasn’t enough, you - you went to Takodana and then Starkiller...I can’t do anything to protect you when you’re up in space, especially not when you keep taking bigger and more dangerous risks.” 

“Then you offered yourself up as bait for the evacuation...I’d always known you’d die in a second for the Resistance, but it’s...it’s one thing knowing something and another having to watch it happen in real-time, with no way to stop it, and I - I can’t lose you.” 

Poe removes his hand from over your heart to tip your chin up with his index finger. You’re still afraid to meet his gaze, so you settle on focusing your attention on his shoulder. “You could’ve just yelled at me, you know. Instead of avoiding me.” Poe says, trying to diffuse the tension that’s built up between you two since he woke up.

“Would you have listened?” 

Poe winces. “Depends on what you had to say.”

“I would’ve told you to stay out of trouble.”

“Probably not.”

You drop your head against his knee. “I  _ should _ have just yelled at you, I shouldn’t have pushed you away. If anything had happened -” you try not to choke on a sudden sob, registering for the first time how much you risked by freezing him out - “I’d never have forgiven myself.”

“I would.”

You look up, brow furrowed in confusion. “You would what?”

“Forgive you. I  _ do _ forgive you, I just - I wanted to know why.” He wasn’t totally oblivious, he had started to put the dots together after you yelled at him earlier, but...he couldn’t really believe you’d be so upset and worried about his safety that you’d...do this.

You lean back from him in shock and haul yourself to your feet as you stumble over your words. “I don’t - I don’t deserve your forgiveness.” You step away, towards the closed cockpit door, eyes drifting up to the flickering control panel over it.

The pilot’s seat creaks lightly as Poe stands up too. He takes a cautious step toward you. “Yeah? Maybe I don’t deserve your faith either - in fact, I’m pretty damn sure I don’t - but I still have it. And you still have my forgiveness, even if you don’t want it.”

“You should hate me, why don’t you hate me?”

“I could never hate you,” Poe replies, splaying his hand across your lower back. The warmth of his touch is enough for you to falter, and you take in a deep shuddering breath.

“Why not?” You ask after a minute, turning around to face him. He’s closer than you thought he was, and you automatically take a step backward, bumping into the steel of the door. His white shirt is frumpled from where he’d fallen asleep and his hair is more mussed than usual from the amount he’s played his fingers through it. It’s distracting.

“Does it need saying?” 

You blink, drawing your gaze up to his warm brown eyes that are sparkling under the Falcon’s various control panels. “For me -” you swallow and wet your lips - “yeah, it does.”

He shifts his weight which tilts him just a step closer. “I -” 

A sudden squawk sends you jumping forward, colliding into his chest. Poe grabs you to keep you upright but teeters slightly as he tries to keep your balance from the momentum of your jump.

“What the hell was that?” You ask, gripping onto his shirt and looking over your neck to find -

A porg, coming out from a pried-loose panel next to where you were standing. If you squint, you can make out the tell-tale signs of a nest. 

“I guess we still have a couple of stowaways,” Poe says wryly, a grin tugging on his lips as you turn back to him. You’re still holding each other: his hands are on your waist and you still haven’t let go of your death-grip on his shirt. 

He seems to come to the same realization the same time you do, because his smile shifts into something else, and his eyes drop down to your lips and back up so quickly you think you must have imagined it in the poor light.

You  _ could  _ look away, could duck your head and crack a joke to break whatever the hell this is, but you don’t. Instead, you hold his gaze like you couldn’t all those times he would catch you looking at him from across the room. Part of you feels like this is a dangerous game to play - you only just now feel like your friendship is maybe salvaged - and the other part knows it’s been a long time coming.

So, you slide one hand up his chest to the back of his neck, then pause and chew on your bottom lip nervously as you wait for his reaction. He exhales shakily at your touch, his eyes darkening. He nods once, squeezing your waist for extra reassurance. You lean up on your tiptoes, slowly, your heart hammering in your chest -

The Falcon shudders violently, lurching the two of you into one of the chairs. You land haphazardly on Poe, who grunts out a wheeze. “Sorry -” you mutter, as he twists in the seat with one arm around your waist to figure out what’s going on. 

His voice is rough when he speaks, “We’ve dropped out of hyperspace.”

Sure enough, when you go to look, there’s a field of stars beyond the window now instead of the blue glow of hyperspace. You frown, “I thought you said it would take a day to get there?” 

“I did,” Poe says, trying to work around you as he checks the scanners. You start to stand up, but he doesn’t move his arm from around you, just grips a little tighter in a silent  _ don’t get up yet.  _ “We’re nowhere near the drop zone.”

He yelps as the control panel spark suddenly. The lights in the cockpit flash rapidly, then just as abruptly, go out entirely, and the Falcon goes silent.

Both of you stare at the panels for a moment, then Poe buries his face into your back. “Oh man, Chewie and Rey are going to kill me.”

“Well, they’re back on Ajan Kloss, so you’re safe for the time being.” You remind him. “You think it was the Porgs?”

Poe groans and you feel the heat of his breath through the fabric of your shirt. “I don’t know, probably. Maybe that little guy got into the wiring before he came out to give us a heart attack.”

You pat the arm still wrapped around you. Reluctantly, Poe lets go and you stand up to inspect the panel the Porg came out of. “I’m no mechanic, but I don’t think that’s the issue.”

“Why not?” Poe asks, clambering to his feet.

You reach into the panel, careful to avoid the nest, and pull out a bottle of alcohol. “Because I’m pretty sure this is just a smuggler compartment.” 

You pass Poe the bottle. He lets out an impressed whistle, “This is some expensive stuff, or at least it was back in the Rebellion days.” He twists the cap off, sniffs, and rears back with a disgusted expression. “Oof, that’ll knock you over. I’m surprised the Porgs haven’t gotten drunk just from smelling the stuff in there.”

“How do you know they aren’t?” You chuckle as he puts the cap back on and hands it back to you. You don’t slide it back into the compartment though - he’s probably  _ right,  _ it doesn’t seem like a good idea to put it back in there with a bunch of porgs.

You stand up, still holding the bottle, and suddenly remember the position the two of you’d been in before the Falcon had interrupted. “So...” you start, unsure if you should address the new tension between the two of you. “What do we do now?”

Poe’s still staring at you and it takes him a second to register your words. “Well, I could think of something -” he stops at your amused smile and clears his throat. “You meant the ship.”

“I meant the ship, yeah.” 

He moves around you to open the door. His arm brushes against yours in a way that seems intentional.

“Where are you going?”

“To check the engine room, there might be something blown in there,” Poe calls over his shoulder. You trail after him, down the corridors. 

“What about the floor panel in the sitting room? The one Rey’s usually messing with. We could check there, too.” 

Poe stops short, waves his finger in the air, and changes direction. “You’ve got a point there.”

“Besides if something’s busted there, we could be really in trouble.” You note while he kneels down to pry one of the floor grates up. “The propulsion tank is down there if it overflows -”

“It’ll flood the ship with poisonous gas, I know.” Poe finishes easily, dropping into the hole to search for damage. He pops his head back up with a furrowed brow. “How do  _ you  _ know?”

“I pay attention to when Rey infodumps about this stuff.” You answer with a shrug, shoving yourself off the wall to drop down to the floor by him. He’s still staring at you with this odd expression, so you laugh nervously. “What?”

Poe shakes his head, a shy smile on his face. “Nothing, it’s just - you never fail to impress me.” At your stunned expression, he winks and drops back down into the floor. You clear your throat and tap your finger against the glass bottle a couple of times, the events of the last hour swirling violently in your head. 

You’d notice something simmering under the surface between the two of you that night on D’Qar when he returned from Jakku, how he looked at you for a moment too long with an indecipherably soft look on his face, the charged way he spoke to you, how he said he needed to see you but -

But you couldn’t believe he might feel the same way, and yet - yet, he’d looked at you like  _ that  _ in the cockpit just now, had given you permission to kiss him…

Hot damn, you almost  _ kissed. _

Poe’s head bobs back up so suddenly that you jolt. Your cheeks warm and you look away guiltily, as though he could tell you were thinking about how close you’d been to finding out what it was like to kiss him senseless. 

“Good news is it’s not the propulsion tank.” He frowns, taking in your flustered appearance. “Are you okay?”

“Um,” you say eloquently, then clear your throat. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t press the subject. “The  _ bad _ news is there’s nothing wrong in this area, so...we’re no closer to figuring out why we dropped out of hyperspace.”

You stand up as he pushes himself out from the floor paneling, reaching out a hand to help steady him. “Isn’t there a scanner or something in the cockpit that could tell us where the damage is coming from?”

“Scanner was down.” 

You try not to groan. “Of course it was.”

He drops the grate back into place and takes off for the engine room. You sit the bottle of liquor on the holochess table, then move to catch up with Poe, falling into step beside him. “How far out were we?”

“We had a couple hours to go before we would’ve reached Orto Plutonia,” Poe answers, turning into the engine room. You hesitate in the doorway, surprised by how...cramped the room is, but you follow him in anyway.

“Aha,” Poe motions at the circuit board in front of him. “Seems like one of these blew while we were in transit.”

“Can we fix it?” You ask, sidling up beside him as he works. The thing in question is badly scorched, and - of course - jammed into the board. Poe tugs and tugs on it, but it doesn’t budge.

“C’mon -” he tugs at it again, but it still won’t move. He retracts his hands with a groan, “Yeah we probably could if we could get this one out and find a new one.” He looks around the room as if expecting a new piece to magically appear.

“Let me try.”

Poe makes a frustrated noise and gestures at the piece, “Be my guest.” He squeezes past you so you can swap places. You grab hold of the piece with both of your hands and kick your foot up on the board for added weight, and you  _ shove  _ -

It wriggles somewhat, but not enough, so you tug, again and again, pushing as much weight into your foot as you pull your upper body back sharply. The circuit finally pops free and the momentum nearly sends you falling, but Poe catches you with ease like he’s been waiting for this to happen.

“You know, you really gotta stop falling for me.” He cracks, one hand on your lower back as you righten yourself. 

“Yeah? Maybe you shouldn’t always be there to catch me, then.” You toss him the circuit, then wipe your grimy hands clean on your pants. 

Poe only hums in response and then you feel him step out of the room, so you lean back against the wall to catch your breath. He returns a few seconds later, brandishing a new circuit with a triumphant grin. He brushes past you and pops the new one into place with ease.

The Falcon shudders again, and you look up at the ceiling with bated breath, wondering if something else will blow up. However, it simply steadies itself, and the lights flicker back on.

“C’mon,” Poe says, grabbing your hand and leading you out of the room. You both race through the corridors back to the cockpit. His hand doesn’t leave yours until he drops into the pilot’s seat and starts looking over the panels. “Alright, that fixed one of our problems.”

“We have more than one, now?” 

“Afraid so. We’re working on limited fuel reserves, and dropping out of hyperspace when we did -” Poe leans back in his seat and scrubs his face. “It cost us fuel we don’t have.”

“What are you saying? Do we not have enough to make it to Orto Plutonia?”

“We have enough for that, it’s the return trip I’m worried about. We  _ might  _ have enough to get back to Ajan Kloss, but…” he frowns, staring at the readings as he works out the calculation in his head, and then he shakes his head, “No, we definitely won’t have enough to make it back.”

“We can’t just turn back, the Resistance needs these supplies.” You worry at your bottom lip, looking out at the expanse of space. When you turn back to Poe, you find him staring at you with a dazed expression, which you elect to ignore despite how it sends a zing through your veins. “You said there’s not enough fuel to get us back to base, right? Is there enough to get us to another planet where we could refuel?”

Poe looked down at the scanners. “I mean...we definitely could, but our list of allies is pretty low and we’re not exactly in an inconspicuous ship.” 

“Could you get us to Lothal?”

His head snaps up, warm brown eyes meeting yours with uncertainty. “You haven’t been back there -”

You exhale shakily. “I know, but there’s a guy there who could probably help us. An old smuggler,” you admit shyly. “He owes me a favor and he’s usually got pretty good resources.”

Poe’s lips move soundlessly for a second before he shakes his head. “A  _ smuggler _ owes you a favor?”

You hum in affirmation. When the stunned expression doesn’t leave his face, you roll your eyes. “Is there anyone in this galaxy who hasn’t crossed paths with some smugglers before?”

“I guess not,” Poe admits with a twist of his head. “Alright, I think we probably could swing a trip to Lothal after this, but it’ll be close. If we run into any trouble on the surface, I won’t be able to get us out of atmo probably.”

“Guess we better not run into any trouble then.” You say and nod at the controls. “You gonna hit it?”

“And you say I’m the reckless one.” Poe laughs, twisting to prep the calculations. You watch him with a soft smile as he works, his soft profile, the way he murmurs the numbers under his breath as he works. When he turns back, he stretches across the controls to grip the lever that’ll send the Falcon into hyperspace but Poe hesitates.

“You’ll be okay, right?” He asks, eyes softening at the corners. “Do you want to leave so you don’t have to -”

You lean across and place your hand over his on the controls. “I’m good as long as I got you. Let’s go.”

His eyes widen just a fraction, and then a smile lifts up the corners of his mouth. “Alright then.” He removes his hand from under yours. “Wanna do the honors?”

You grin and wrap your fingers around the lever, sharing a breathless smile with Poe just before you slam the control down. Before you, stars turn into white lines, and then you’re in hyperspace again. This time, the storm doesn’t seem so scary.

“You know, I’m thinking…” you say, moving your hand back to your lap and leaning against the leather seat. “When we get back - if you still wanted to - maybe...you could pick up Jess’s lessons?”

Poe turns to face you, his cheek pressed against the leather of his own chair. There’s so much hope in his eyes that you almost can’t bear it. “This is -” he clears his throat. “That’s something you want?”

You nod. “It is.”

“So, does that mean we’re...back to normal?” Poe asks, then winces. You lightly wheeze, looking back out into hyperspace. After your almost-kiss, you’re not really sure if  _ normal  _ is the best way to describe things.

“It means I want my best friend back in my life if he’ll have me.” You finally answer.

Poe takes one of your hands and turns it over palm-first, threads your fingers together. “He’ll have you,” he whispers. “Always.”

You can’t stop the grin that spreads across your cheeks, nor do you want to. At last, tomorrow seems a little brighter, because now you’ve got Poe at your side again.

And maybe there’s even the promise of more in your future.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and the Reader make it to Lothal, which resurfaces old memories for the Reader as she reunites with an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am once again unable to write anything shorter than 5k when it comes to this series, apparently. I've also decided to add another chapter to this fic, so we're not quite done yet! cw: mentions of a toxic family relationship, injuries, references to poe dameron: freefall.

When the Falcon finally emerges from hyperspace, Poe tries not to glare as he guides the ship into Lothal's atmosphere. While he knew the planet itself wasn't at fault for your past trauma, he couldn't get the negative association out of his head: you had been hurt and nearly broken here and that was enough to sour his opinion of the planet. 

But it sure beats Orto Plutonia. As someone who grew up on Yavin IV, he hadn't been looking forward to spending any amount of time on the snow planet. Neither had you, but seeing you in a parka almost made the freezing temperatures worth it. 

_ “If you don’t stop laughing Poe Dameron -” you threatened but you couldn't finish your sentence because a laugh bubbled out of your throat as Poe hid his smile behind his hand: his distinct laugh wasn't something easily smothered. _

_ “I’m sorry you just - you look like you were swallowed by the parka.” He lowered his hand, brown eyes twinkling as he took you in. You glared up at him from under the hoodie, which only furthered his amusement. It was hard to take your fury seriously when you looked like  _ that _ and were fighting to keep a smile off your face. _

_ “It’s not my fault everyone in the Resistance is so kriffing tall,” you muttered as you tugged the jacket closer to your chest.  _

_ “Can you see out of it?” Poe asked and leaned closer to get a better look at your face that you were trying to hide. You turned your head to the side to face the fabric instead of his face.  _

_ “I can see just fine when you’re not blocking the view - and no cracks about  _ being _ the view.” You added quickly, realizing you’d just set yourself up for the sarcastic comeback. _

_ Instead, Poe gasped and pressed his hand to his chest in mock pain as he leaned away (which was good because you could catch your breath, and bad because you enjoyed having him so close). “Now give me more credit, I’d be more creative than that.” _

Once the Falcon is safely on the ground, Poe leans back in his seat and sneaks a glance at you. After you'd recovered the supplies (which there hadn't been much left of, but any weapons were better than none, and more than he expected to find) you'd returned to the Falcon and Poe started to notice you hiding more and more yawns as you prepared for the next hyperspace trip. He tried to get you to go sleep in the captain's quarters, but you'd refused to leave his side. 

But you’d fallen asleep shortly after the jump to hyperspace, head tipped towards him from where you'd dozed off watching him.

He knows he should be waking you up so the two of you can get a move on, but he doesn’t. Instead, he thinks about everything that happened on the trip to Orto Plutonia: your argument, the way you’d woken him from his nightmare, how close the two of you’d come to sharing a kiss…

Okay, if he was being honest with himself, it was mostly the latter that he kept thinking about: the way you’d chewed on your bottom lip as you skimmed your hand up to his chest to the back of his neck, waiting for his permission before leaning up - 

He closed his eyes, trying to memorize the feeling of your breath fanning across his lips. It smelled spicy but sweet, probably from the Gatalentan tea you’d been drinking.

If only that damn fuse hadn’t blown.

Poe groans and scratches at his forehead. He hadn’t expected this mission to go smoothly when Leia informed him it was you and him who would be going on it: he’d tried to protest, tried to get out of it himself, and offered several replacements that could have gone with you instead, but Leia refused.

Poe can’t help but wonder if this was Leia’s intent: to get you two to talk. Your friendship was well-known throughout the Resistance and there had been some talk about how the two of you weren’t attached to the hip anymore. Snap brought it up with Poe shortly after they made it to Ajan Kloss, asking if something had happened between the two of you, and Poe didn’t have an answer.

It was a whirlwind after Jakku - one he didn’t like to think about often - but the only thing he could figure out was that maybe,  _ somehow _ , he’d overstepped that night when he showed up on your doorstep and demanded you actually - just once - let yourself be vulnerable, let someone catch you and hold you while you broke instead of the other way round.

Then, he managed to convince himself that maybe the real reason you’d been avoiding him was the Dreadnaught. Maybe you hated him as much as he hated himself for his mistakes.

But no, apparently you'd been  _ afraid _ . Scared for  _ him _ \- he could barely wrap his head around it. He never doubted that you cared about him, you were best friends, but he'd never stopped to think you could care for him  _ this  _ much, that the idea of losing him could keep you awake at night or even push you away from him.

“You’re staring,” you murmur, breaking him from his thoughts. He refocuses his gaze to find you watching him with a gentle smile. It takes a lot of self-restraint for him to not lean across the space between you to kiss you, but he somehow manages it.

“Sorry,” Poe mumbles, but he doesn’t look away. “I was just - I haven’t seen you look that peaceful in a long time.” 

“It’s funny, I thought the same thing when I found you asleep earlier,” you chuckle as you stretch to wake up fully, the hem of your shirt riding up slightly to reveal a strip of skin at your waist, leaving one of your scars on display. Poe frowns and starts to ask how you got that before he realizes that would mean you’d know he was  _ looking _ , so he doesn’t. “We're here already?"

He follows your field of vision, out toward the rolling golden hills of the field he’d opted to land on. It was better than landing in the middle of the main city, he thought. Lothal had been a hotbed of activity for the Empire back when, and he already knew there were plenty of sympathizers on this planet thanks to what you told him about your past.

“You okay?” Poe asks, snapping his gaze back to you. You already look weary, expression caught in memory and he wonders what ghosts are haunting you. If it weren’t for the fact there wasn’t enough fuel left, he would’ve thrown the engines back on and prepped for departure. He hated seeing you like this: torn up and  _ small.  _ You never looked small to him - not even when he comforted you on D’Qar, not when you freaked out from the sight of hyperspace - no you were always a force to be reckoned with: you kind of reminded him of Leia in that regard.

But now you seem to be shrinking in on yourself right in front of his eyes. He remembers you telling him how you came to life around him and suddenly Poe wonders if this was what you’d done your whole life before you came to the Resistance: shrunk in on yourself, made yourself small, kept quiet.

He hates this planet all the more for it, hates the people he knows are responsible for trying to snuff out your spark before it could ever catch flame, for making you think you had to be anything less than what you are.

Now he  _ really _ wants to close the distance between the two of you, but he’s not sure if it’s to hug you or to press kisses everywhere he can to remind you that you don’t have to be this around him, you don’t have to be  _ this  _ anymore at all.

You give a quick shake of your head to answer Poe’s question. The memories come too fast and too sudden for you: tears spill out over your cheeks in seconds, and the wound from that terrible last day with your family rips back open.

Poe scoots to the edge of his seat and reaches for your hand. You grasp it desperately, like a lifeline. Between the warmth of his hand and the pressure of when he squeezes yours gently, you feel slightly less overwhelmed by everything. “Wanna talk about it?”

If it’d been anyone else in the galaxy asking that question, you would’ve said no. But this was Poe Dameron, and somehow he was one of the few people who made you feel like you weren’t a burden, that you didn’t have to carry everything on your own, so you answer him, “It’s my fault they sold her out to them, I should have gotten to her sooner or done more to convince them the First Order was...or I should’ve realized they’d stand with them sooner. I’m such an idiot.”

“Hey,” Poe brushes away a stray tear with the back of his thumb. “Let’s not use language like that, alright?”

“I was naive, then.”

“No. You weren’t that, either.” Poe says firmly, looking deadly serious. You fix him with a look, beginning to feel frustrated. Why wouldn’t he just let you be angry with yourself?

“Then what was I, flyboy? Because whatever I was, I wasn’t enough because I couldn’t stop my parents from joining the First Order and I couldn’t stop the First Order from - from -” you close your eyes, unable to look him in the eye anymore.

Poe’s quiet for a long moment, the only sound in the cockpit the noises of your heavy breaths. Finally, he asks, “Can I tell you a story?”

You pop one eye open to look at him skeptically, and some of your frustration leaks out when you realize he looks  _ nervous.  _ You give a quick nod and Poe leans back in his seat, staring out toward the field but also not really seeing it either. “When I was sixteen, I met this girl, Zorii -”

Your frustration immediately surges back into place, and you wonder why Poe thinks hearing about some former flame will make you feel any better. Still, you keep your lips pressed into a firm line and listen anyway.

“-she told me she and her smuggling crew was looking for a pilot. I was desperate to get off Yavin IV, to do something  _ more _ , so I took the job. Didn’t find out until too late that they’d lied to me, and were actually members of the Kijimi Spice Runners. Zorii’s crew didn’t run the stuff, but they went around gathering intel and other goods.” Poe spreads his hands. “I spent a year with them and...got a lot more trouble than I bargained for. Almost died, once or twice.”

“Why’d you stay with them? They lied to you -”

“Because I thought I saw  _ more _ in them,” Poe cuts across you, voice gentle as he watches you pointedly. “I thought they could do  _ better.  _ I thought Zorii could be better than the world she’d dragged me into - I  _ knew  _ she could if she tried. So I stayed, longer than I should’ve.”

You hold his gaze for a beat before you fold, and quietly ask, “What happened?”

Poe’s mouth twitches down at the memory. “She was going to do something...really bad and wanted my help. I wouldn’t do it, and I made sure she couldn’t either.” He cracks a smile, the one he gets when he thinks of a really terrible joke, and tips his head towards you, “I met some really insufferable people that year but they also met  _ me _ .”

You break out into a laugh and roll your eyes fondly at him. For a second, Poe hears Snap’s voice:  _ “She looks at you the way my mom looks at Wedge. Like, really fondly exasperated, like she can’t decide if she wants to throttle you or kiss you.” _

_ Hot damn, maybe he was onto something, _ Poe muses.

Shaking his head to clear the thought away, for now, Poe continues, “My point is...there’s nothing wrong with seeing the potential for good in others. Whether or not those individuals make the choice to do so isn’t on us, alright? You gave your parents a choice, and they chose the First Order. You shouldn’t blame yourself for what they did, and you made  _ your _ choice. You chose the Resistance.”

And how glad was he that you had because he can’t fathom a universe that would’ve been robbed of your bright light; doesn’t want to imagine one where it’s snuffed out completely by people who don’t love or understand you in ways that matter, and most damning of all, he can’t wrap his head around a world where he never met  _ you. _

Your eyes begin to sting again as warmth blossoms in your chest from his words. Before you can talk yourself out of it, you grab him by the back of his neck and press your foreheads together. Poe’s breath hitches as your noses bump, but you don’t close the rest of the distance. Instead, you let your eyes slip close and card your fingers through his hair.

“Thank you,” you whisper as Poe shakily cups your cheek, his thumb running along your jawline. Your stomach flips pleasantly at the gesture.

“Anything for you, Y/L/N,” Poe replies like it’s the simplest answer in the universe, a mere  _ fact _ , like the color of the sky. Not a promise that means everything to you.

With a frown, you pull away as you recall something, “Wait a minute, the Kijimi Spice Runners fell in...19 ABY, didn’t they?”

Poe gave you a lopsided grin, eyes sparkling mischievously. “Like I said, they also met  _ me _ .”

* * *

There is no sense of nostalgia as you and Poe slip through the crowded streets of Lothal’s capital. You need to rent a speeder to get to Firith’s hideout, which unfortunately means returning to your old haunts.

You threw on a cloak before you left the Falcon: it's wrapped tightly around you, the hood hung low over your face so hopefully, no one will recognize you. While you weren’t that popular, the fact that you’re having to pass through so many of your old stomping grounds leaves you on edge. It amazes you to think you ever believed you were comfortable on this dustball, around these people.

Walking down these dusty streets and remembering all the times you were told to quiet down when your voice grew to a certain level or being teased for being so passionate and intense about what you believed in or being too  _ sensitive,  _ you realize just how much you were deprived of growing up here. You’d been taught to hide everything away that made you who you were, just to please the people you’d gladly left behind a few years ago.

It sends a renewed sense of appreciation for the Resistance through you: for Major Kalonia who’d taken you under her wing and showed you how you could be both gentle and strong as beskar, for General Organa for not judging you on your family’s sins; for Kaydel for befriending you and being there for each other as you rose through the ranks.

And, of course, for the man beside you, whose hand hasn’t left yours since you’d left the Falcon. Every few minutes, he’ll squeeze it lightly like he’s reassuring you he’s still here. It helps, but maybe not in the way he intends it to. It reminds you that you can keep your chin up, your shoulders back now: you don’t have to hide or shrink in.

After a while, you find yourself focusing less on the streets — it’s still muscle memory, your legs move on their own accord as you guide him to the old speeder shop — and more on Poe when he isn’t looking: on the stubble that’s grown darker since you left Ajan Kloss, on how his brown eyes track the streets for any signs of a threat, the way the sunshine glows like a golden halo around his hair.

You could have kissed him back there on the Falcon.

Maybe it’s not the thing that should be preoccupying your mind at the moment, but it’s the thought that keeps flitting in between all the memories: you could have kissed him when you pressed your foreheads together, but you hadn’t. 

Your gaze dips down from his hair to his lips. You were becoming increasingly familiar with what it was like to have Poe’s breath mingle with yours, no space left between you, and yet you still had no idea what it would be like to have his lips against yours.

Oh, you could certainly  _ imagine  _ what it would be like.

After you’d gone back into hyperspace en route to Orto Plutonia, you’d dozed back off into an easy sleep after watching him guide the Falcon expertly. You loved how at ease he was when he was flying, his breathless smiles, and - if you were being honest - how you could admire his forearms while he worked the controls.

But the nap hadn’t let you catch your breath, because you’d dreamt of that moment when you almost kissed - only there had been no broken fuses to interrupt you in the dream. The feeling of his lips against yours in the dream had felt so real that you woke up feeling decidedly grumpy it hadn’t  _ actually _ happened.

Poe flicks his gaze over to you, at the faint almost dreamy smile on your face. His cheeks warm as he realizes you’re staring at him, and he finds himself thinking back to what he asked you earlier:  _ does that mean we’re back to normal? _

He knows what  _ normal _ feels like with you - bickering, finishing each other’s sentences, walking you to your quarters at night if he found you working too late, waking up in the mornings to find you on the other side of his door looking half-asleep but offering him a cup of caf. It was you sitting on the top of his X-Wing reading a book while he worked on repairs, the two of you singing along to the same song.

What normal  _ wasn’t  _ was the lingering looks that were quickly averted when caught, the way your eyes had darkened back in the cockpit of the Falcon right before you’d leaned up on your tiptoes  _ to kiss him, _ or the way your banter seemed to edge on outright  _ flirting  _ now or even the way you’d carded your fingers through his hair when you leaned in after he told you about Kijimi.

Whatever the hell  _ this  _ was, it wasn’t normal. It felt like normal and something else was blurring together: Poe wasn’t sure if that terrified him or exhilarated him. 

You tug his hand sharply, dragging him out of his thoughts. You raise the hand he’s still holding toward a building on the corner of the street with a handful of beat up speeders displayed. He nods once, and the pair of you weave through passersby toward the shop.

You hang back while he pays for the rental, which unfortunately means he has to drop your hand. He misses it the entire time he talks with the shop owner, misses it when he turns around to find you already throwing a leg over the speeder you now temporarily own.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Poe asks as he rejoins you, the shopkeeper moving back inside to put away the credits he’d given them. 

“Driving,” you answer shortly, but there’s a smirk tugging on your lips that he doesn’t like. Well, now that’s not entirely true, he  _ definitely  _ likes it, he just doesn’t appreciate the amount of mischief it promises. Suddenly he’s remembering all the shit he’s pulled on you whenever he managed to convince you to go on a flight with him, and this just  _ can’t  _ end well. “Not scared are you, Dameron?”

Poe clears his throat. “Not at all. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

He slides on behind you, hands faltering for a second as he realizes he’ll have to wrap them around your waist for this to work.  _ It’s Y/N,  _ his brain reminds him, but he quickly follows it with an even stronger counter-argument of,  _ but it’s  _ Y/N _. _

It’s hard to focus on starting up the speeder when Poe slips his arms around your waist, and you immediately chide yourself: it’s not as if this is a new experience, he’s done this  _ plenty  _ of times: he’s come up behind you, snaked his arms around your torso and perched his chin on your shoulder to pester you on the slower days in the medbay. 

Still, this  _ feels  _ different. Maybe it’s because the charged energy between you hasn’t settled from your almost kiss, or maybe you’re no longer use to his touch after three months apart, or maybe it’s that kriffin’ dream that floods back in your mind of him pulling you close, his arms tight around your torso —

“Totally normal,” you murmur to yourself as the engines roar to life.

“What was that?” Poe asks, his breath fanning around the shell of your ear as he leans forward trying to catch what you said over the engines. Your heart and stomach somersault simultaneously and you suddenly wonder if deciding to drive this thing was a good idea because if he keeps being this distracting, there’s a very  _ real  _ possibility of you crashing.

“Just - uh - admiring the speeder,” you lie and try not to drop your head in embarrassment. Good thing you were a medic and not a spy, maker knew you couldn’t lie to save your life.

You grip the throttle and, trying not to think too much about the man behind you, guide it out of the main city. It’s easy to let everything that’s been weighing down on you go as you focus on how with the smallest ministration you can push the speeder faster, the mingling feeling of control and freedom as the wind blows your hood down, the way you can feel Poe’s laughter rumble through his chest against your back.

As soon as the city (and all traffic laws) disappears behind you and the speeder embraces Lothal’s wilderness, you decide to make good on your promise to give Poe a little dose of his own medicine. You look over your shoulder, not bothering to hide your manic grin, “You ready?”

“Not at all.” Poe shouts back but you can hear the smile in his voice as he adds, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“That’s the spirit, flyboy!” You say as you gun it, the engines hitting their peak and the world becomes a blur around you. A cheer bursts out from your throat as Poe’s grip around your waist tightens as he shouts in alarm, then a second later, glee.

Maybe coming back to Lothal wasn’t so bad after all.

* * *

Firith’s hideout looks exactly as it did when you last left it. It’s situated between two natural rock formations, way into the wilds that your parents use to warn you to avoid for fear of Loth-Wolves, but Firith would always welcome you when you needed a getaway, so you became more familiar with the area than your family ever knew.

You slow the speeder to a stop and cut the engines, but your grip remains tight on the controls as you stare down at the hideout. It was where you’d gone after your parents betrayed you and everything you stood for. Firith offered you shelter and then a path offworld - it was Firith who told you of rumors of a Resistance. It was Fifith who’d found a way to get you in.

You owe everything to him, he was the closest thing you had to family outside the Resistance. 

“You okay?” Poe asks, leaning around to try and catch a glimpse at your expression. He’s struck by the fact that he can’t read it: it’s a complicated flurry of emotions, so many swirling together he can’t pin them down. 

It’s a struggle to find your voice, but you finally whisper, “This is where it all began.”

Poe’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

You look down at his hands still wrapped around your waist and cover them with one of your own. “This is where I became a rebel. C’mon.”

Poe’s grip slackens and you hop off the speeder. When you turn around, he’s watching you with a curious expression, like he’s only just realized something. “What is it?” You ask.

“Nothing just…” Poe shakes his head and swings his legs off the speeder. He studies your face for another beat before his eyes slide down to his boots. He’s remembering something, you realize, and you start to ask what, but a booming laugh from behind you promptly distracts you.

You turn in time for a pair of strong arms to wrap around you, lifting you clean off the ground. “Numa! It’s been too long,” Firith’s voice is loud and ecstatic, and you pat one of his muscular arms with affection as he sits you back down on the ground. You look up at the green-skinned Twi’lek man and take in the ways he’s changed: his lekku have collected more scars, and there are more wrinkles around his eyes than the last time you saw him.

“Numa?” Poe asks, sidling up behind you with a twinkle in his eyes. He hasn’t seen you look this happy in so long that his heart feels like it might burst: your eyes are dancing with light and your smile is so wide and infectious that he finds himself mirroring it.

You glance at him, remembering he’s not as familiar with Twi’lek culture as you are, and start to explain, but Firith beats you to it, “It means sister. This little one has been trailing after me for  _ years _ , like a younger sibling who can’t quite stay out of trouble.”

Poe twists his foot so he’s facing you and folds his arms over his chest. “Oh,  _ really _ ?”

Your cheeks warm, “I can hardly be held responsible for that business with the TIE Fighter,  _ you  _ were the one that said I could come along with you.”

Firith shakes his head with another laugh, “You say that every time.”

“And who treated the blaster injury you got on that job? Or the knife injury when you pissed off that Crimson Dawn agent?” You counter easily, missing the way Poe’s forehead creased, his smile slipping away to a thin line.

Poe’s head is officially spinning: TIE fighters?  _ Crimson Dawn? _ He feels like he’s staring at an entirely new person now, a whole different, more wild side to you than he ever knew existed finally revealed to him.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re not gonna let me forget that, are you?” Firith juts his chin at Poe. “Who’s handsome over there?”

“This is Poe, he’s my -” you hesitate, staring at him with wide eyes as you realize you’re not exactly sure  _ what  _ to call him. “He’s my - uh -”  _ friend? Best friend? Something more? Is there even a term for what we are? _

“Wait, he’s your pilot, isn’t he?” Firith snaps his fingers in recognition. 

Poe blinks in surprise, “Her pilot?”

“Yeah!” Firith offers his hand for an even more confused Poe to shake, “She’s told me all about this pilot she’s friends with. I’m Firith. Nice to put a face to a job description. She never gave me your name,” he adds for clarification.

“Right, well it’s Poe Dameron. Nice to meet you.” Poe retracts his hand, mind buzzing: you’d talked to Firith about him? He was  _ your  _ pilot?

“Not to cut introductions short, but Firith, we need your help.” You say. 

“I wasn’t expecting this to just be a social visit, Numa.” Firith jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s getting late, so before you start asking me for favors, we will eat dinner. Like civilized people do.”

“You need some help?” You ask as Firith leads the two of you back to camp. The sky above has already begun to creep into twilight, and just beyond the ridge, you catch a glimpse of Lothal’s twin moons beginning to creep up behind some storm clouds.

“Not with the dinner, but you two can start us up a fire.” Firith fixes Poe with a stare. “You know how to start a fire, right?”

“Trust me,” you say with a laugh, “Poe’s good at setting things on fire. We’ve got this.”

Firith nods and disappears into one of the tents he has propped up, leaving you to it with no further conversation. By the time the fire is going, the sky is full of stars. You plop down onto the dirt, leaning you back against a rock. Poe follows suit beside you and tilts his head heavenward, not saying anything, his eyes narrowed.

The silence was thick, full of unasked questions that you knew were driving Poe up a wall, so you finally break it, “You’re thinking very loudly.”

“You’ve given me a lot to think about.” 

There’s something in his voice that sets you on edge, worry creeping up instantly, because you can’t put your finger on what it  _ is _ , but his jawline is set and there’s something in his eyes that makes you think you’ve made a misstep somewhere. “Good things, right?” You ask, trying to keep your voice light. It doesn’t entirely land.

If Poe notices this, he doesn’t give any indication of it. His gaze lowered from the stars, his eyelashes brushing his cheekbones as he stared into the fire. “I’m not sure,” he admits quietly, and your heart sinks.

Before you can say anything in response, Firith emerges from the tent with an armful of bowls, surrounded by a delicious aroma that at any other time would’ve excited you, but you just feel numb as you take the proffered bowl of stew, barely catching the name of it as you pass one to Poe, who takes it with a murmur of thanks, then take your own bowl.

Dinner passes with minor chatter for which you’re glad. You’re not sure you could keep it together and try to hold a conversation at once. Firith knows better than to ask for details due to your work with the Resistance, and you’re not sure Poe would appreciate a catch-up on all the sketchy things Firith has done since you last saw him. 

You offer to wash the bowls when everyone’s done, eager to getaway. Poe stands to help, but you wave him off. “I’ve got it,” you tell him, and when he catches the glossiness in your eyes - made more prominent by the fire - he hesitates, then nods once, sitting back down.

As you disappear inside the tent, you aren’t sure if you’re disappointed or relieved that he listened to your silent plea to leave you alone. When you catch yourself listening for a sign that he followed you anyway, you realize it’s the former.

* * *

He tries to keep up with Firith’s small talk, answering what questions he can about himself, but really he can’t stop thinking about the look on your face, the unshed tears in your eyes and how - like a fool - he’d let you walk away.

Everything feels so fragile between you, and he isn’t sure what to do, but he longs for the old equilibrium you had: the days before your fear of losing each other drove you apart, the days before he knew what it was like to hold you in his arms - just... _ before.  _

“She cares about you a lot, you know.” Firith’s eyes are twinkling like he can read Poe’s thoughts. Poe shifts, hooking one of his legs underneath the other, not replying and instead giving Firith a look that says plainly,  _ say what you want to say. _

“After everything that happened with her an’ her folks, I was worried about her so I gave her a way to keep in touch with me. A special comms channel, encrypted well enough to give even the most seasoned slicer a headache,” Firith grins, spreads his hands. “I’m still alive after all these years for a reason, I’m cleverer than the opposition. That includes the First Order.”

His smile fades, face clouding with memory. “I’d never seen her like that, after what they did. She always did what she could to make ‘em happy, act like the perfect kid and all that. I like to think I was a good influence, giving her a taste of what freedom was like. But she was...stars, I thought they’d snuffed her light out for good. I’d heard rumors of -” Firith flaps his hand at Poe - “The Resistance, so I gave her the idea. Little nudge. Had no idea how good it would be for her, ‘till she commed me to tell me she made it. I’d never heard her so  _ happy  _ before.”

Poe swallows thickly. He still remembers that day, when Leia asked him to show you to your quarters. You’d been so focused on taking in the base that you’d almost walked into several officers and walls, and he’d had to guide you gently out of the way just before collision more than once as he gave you the grand tour.

“Anyway, she told me about this pilot she met, how he made her feel right at home, showed her ‘round the whole base.” Firith fixes Poe with a soft smile. “How he encouraged her to keep talking when she started to ramble, instead of asking her to stop, and then how the next morning she woke up to him on her doorstep with a cup of caf and a sweet droid at his ankles.”

Poe ducks his head at the memory. He wasn’t even sure you liked caf, but he hadn’t been able to get your smile out of his head after he told you that you didn’t have to apologize for rambling to him, and he longed to see it again.

“She kept in touch with me - not frequently, she didn’t want to take any chances with the First Order - and every time she had another story about this pilot, her best friend. Her hero, even.”

“I’m not a hero,” Poe says quickly. 

“No?”

“No,” Poe confirms, jaw taut. “I’m not.”

Firith lifts his mug to his lips, takes a sip, then sucks air in between his teeth as the ale goes down his throat. “Maybe you don’t think so, but she does. You know, the last time I heard from her, you were missing. Dead, even.”

Poe snaps his gaze back up at Firith, heart stuttering in his chest.  _ Jakku _ , he realizes. Those three days that she thought he was gone for good, those three days that put them in this mess, to begin with. “What - what did she say?” he asks before he can stop himself.

Firith pauses, “That’s not for me to tell, but I’ll tell you this, Poe Dameron: whatever the hell has got you two looking like two sad loth-cats, you need to fix. Because what you have isn’t something that should ever be lost, no matter how scary it seems.”

* * *

You poke around in the tent for longer than necessary, not yet willing to deal with facing the music outside, so you brace yourself over one of the tables Firith has set up and let out a tired sigh. You can’t get the look on Poe’s face out of your head and wonder if bringing him here to Firith was a good idea. The truth of the matter is that you have no idea  _ what  _ you’re supposed to be doing anymore.

The sound of the tent flapping open behind you causes you to raise your head. When you turn, you expect to find Firith, but it’s not him.

It’s Poe. 

“This isn’t normal,” he blurts, spreading his arms out and motioning between the two of you, “whatever we are now, it’s not  _ normal _ . It’s not like before and that scares me the hell out of me.”

You breathe out a sardonic laugh, “You think, Dameron?” When his expression doesn’t shift from the somber one he has now, you swipe at your brow with your knuckles: you were really going to do this now. “Before what?”

Poe begins to cross the floor to you as he replies, “Before - before Jakku, before the Finalizer, before that brute -” he comes up short, both literally and verbally, inches from you. A muscle in his jaw twitches. “He saw you in my head, saw what you meant to me.”

The gravity of what he’s saying hits you as his brown eyes bore into yours, a desperate plea for you to understand, and you think that maybe you do. The words dance on the edge of your tongue, just barely out of grasp, but your fingertips brush against it, against the truth -

“And what do I mean to you?” You push, taking a step forward, tilting your chin up.

“Does it need -” Poe starts but you cut him off.

“Don’t you  _ dare _ finish that sentence, yes it does because you want to know why?” You snap, nostrils flaring. “Because believing things don’t need to be said is why we’re even in this damn mess, to  _ begin _ with! Not everything is so obvious - for maker’s sake, you thought I  _ hated _ you for D’Qar, all because I was too scared to tell you that I -” you snap your mouth shut before the rest of the sentence can escape, as Poe’s eyes soften.

He could take the cheap shot by pointing out that you’re afraid to say it too, but he doesn’t, not with your face wide with fear like it is right now, the same kind of fear that has his heart drumming a tattoo against his ribcage and he runs a hand through his curls, “I don’t know  _ how _ to tell you, that’s the problem.”

“So _show_ me, then, because I don’t know how to say it either and -” the rest of your sentence is cut off by him crashing his lips to yours, one hand grabbing your hip to pull you close while the other one cups your cheek. Your stagger backward against the kiss, your lower back pressing against the edge of the table as your hand slides across it in surprise as you try to brace yourself.

Before you can respond properly, he’s pulling away, taking a full step backward from you, looking more terrified than you’ve ever seen him before, like he still doesn’t believe that you could feel the same way, like you hadn’t already tried to kiss him once before.

You take a step forward, determined to show him like he’d shown you since he doesn’t seem to believe it — 

“I got the access codes like you asked,” Firith says, shoving open the tent flap and stepping inside, his nose buried in a holopad. “You can sneak into the fuel depot first thing in the morning and be on your merry way.”

He looks up and his expression dulls as his eyes sweep between the two of you, finally registering the tension in the air, “Am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Poe lies, placing his hands on his hips and shifting his stance.

“What fuel depot?” You ask, running your tongue along your bottom lip, still feeling dazed from the kiss.

“First Order’s gotta fuel depot out here, now. Just like the Empire before ‘em.” Firith rolls his eyes. “You’ll have to acquire some uniforms, of course, but that’s a problem for tomorrow us.”

Poe claps Firith on the shoulder, “Thanks for your help.”

“I owe her a favor,” Firith replies with a shrug, throwing you a wink. “She’s patched me up more times than I can count; pretty sure I’d be dead if it weren’t for her.”

Poe glances over at you, a tight smile curving his lips. “I know the feeling.”

Your heart seizes, and you start to take a step forward - to do what, you’re not sure, maybe kiss him, audience be damned - but then he ducks out of the tent, leaving you alone with Firith who drums his fingers awkwardly against the edge of the holopad.

“I definitely interrupted something, didn’t I?” 

You sigh. “It’s fine, Firith. We’ll have time to deal with things later.”

* * *

You don’t stop to think before you leap in front of him when the stormtrooper squeezes the trigger. It’s like time has slowed down and sped up all at once, and your only thought is to get to him before that blast does.

Pain lances through you as you take the full blow of it. Poe shouts your name, catching you as you fall backward. Through blurry vision, you see the same stormtrooper who shot you fall to the ground dead. Poe’s arms hook under your elbows as your knees give out, and he guides you gently to the floor.

_ We’ll have time later to deal with things. _

You blink away tears as Poe grabs your face, mumbling something about focusing on him. You try to focus on his face, but your gaze keeps sliding lower to the uniform he’s wearing - a First Order’s officer's uniform, just like the one you’re wearing. It doesn’t suit him, you told him as such when he first put it on, you much preferred him in orange -

You just barely make out him contacting Firith, too focused on your own messy thoughts:  _ we’ll have time. _

Your vision’s starting to go black around the edges, and you think back to earlier in the day, back to your argument on the Falcon and you’re gripped with desperation to tell him -

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, clutching at the scratchy fabric of that damned uniform, “I’m sorry I called you an idiot that wasn’t -” you cough, “That wasn’t right -”

“Now?” Poe snaps, his pupils wide with fear. “That’s what you’re focusing on right now?”

“I was an ass -” you continue, ignoring him because it’s getting harder to talk and the world is teetering away and there is a darkness creeping in, the promise of a warm night's sleep. It terrifies you, but not quite as much as going without him  _ knowing _ \- 

But then you can’t get the rest of your words out, and the last thing you see is his panicked expression as your eyes slip shut, your name falling from his lips in a wretched cry that breaks your heart.

_ We should’ve had time. _

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Reader recovers from her blaster wound, and she and Poe finally pick up the pieces to rebuild their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here we are, at the end of this little multi-chapter fic. I can't believe how long it ended up being, but here we are. warnings: mentions of injury and death (though don't worry!! this has a happy ending, nobody is dying here).

The transport shuttle is silent save the thrum of the engines as Firith skims it through the afternoon skies. A spare glance out of the transparisteel would’ve shown Poe that it was a dreary day, darkened clouds promising rain, but he doesn’t have the energy to pick his head up, shoulders slumped as he sits in the back.

You were stretched out on a cot before him, looking entirely too still for his liking. He tries to focus on the way your chest rises and falls with shallow breaths, to remind himself that you’re not  _ gone _ , that you’re alive.

It was supposed to be an easy op: get in, grab the fuel, get out. But, of course, with his luck that didn’t go according to plan. He’d been recognized by a passing officer, and then the next second you’d both been flanked by a squad of stormtroopers.

You held your own fairly well, too. You’d always been handy with a blaster, but it was evident that you’d only gotten better in the past three months. For a split second, back to back and watching each other’s six, Poe felt invincible.

Then you’d jumped in front of him, taking a shot meant for him, and any thought of invincibility fled from his mind as he struggled to catch you and take out the ‘trooper who’d shot you in the same span of seconds.

He’s so focused on you that he doesn’t notice when the engines cut, or when Firith exits the cockpit, fiddling with his pilot’s gloves. “I got us as close as we could to your ship, so we can start fueling it up.”

It takes a minute for Poe to register what Firith says, but he nods automatically. The mission hadn’t been a failure, you’d gotten the fuel needed to get the Falcon back to Ajan Kloss, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing when he can’t get the image of you going slack against him, beautiful eyes unfocusing before they slipped shut and he thought you -

Firith claps a hand to Poe’s shoulder and squeezes it. The older man’s voice is surprisingly gentle when he speaks again, “She’s a tough kid, she’ll pull through.”

Poe’s voice comes out rough when he replies, “I know.” 

Firith’s hand slips from his shoulder and he crosses to your cot, checking over on you, working to replace the bacta Poe had shakily applied earlier. His hands were still covered in the stuff and your blood.

He’s still in that damn uniform, too. Poe closes his eyes, tipping his head back against the wall. It’s an uncomfortable fabric and the collar’s too tight and if he thinks too long about the fact that he’s wearing it, he feels like he’s going to be sick, but there hadn’t been time to change when they’d escaped from the compound.

_ She’s tough _ , he reminds himself as Firith leaves to begin unloading the canisters of fuel they’d liberated from the First Order.  _ She’ll pull through _ .

* * *

_ “What are you doing here?” You demand, grabbing Poe by his tunic as you collide in the middle of the hallway. You look past him at the moving medical staff, the gurneys being rolled away.  _

_ “Came to help with the evacuations,” Poe replies easily, dark eyes flaring with an emotion you can’t identify as he sweeps a gaze over you. You note the shade under his eyes, the way his eyes are slightly red-rimmed, the set to his jaw. _

_ You remember the rumors you heard thrown around the medical frigate, of Leia being gone and ask, “Is the General -?” _

_ “Alive but critical.” Poe’s voice is a ragged breath, speaking through his teeth like he’s strained an untreated injury. “All our leadership…” he schools his expression into a more neutral one as Major Kalonia passes with a handful of other officers. As soon as they’ve gone, the mask drops, and he looks exhausted again. _

_ “We’ll get through it,” you tell him firmly. You don’t share the conviction that laces your words; no doubt, the steel in your voice is fueled solely by all anger you currently feel towards the man before you. “We always do.” _

_ “I hope you’re right, Y/L/N,” Poe replies distractedly. You don’t know what else to say - or rather, you’re not sure how long you can keep standing in front of him without chewing him out for his earlier recklessness - so you pat him lightly on the chest and part ways from him. _

_ “I usually am, flyboy.” _

* * *

Chewbacca is the first one up the Falcon’s ramp, following closely at Poe’s heels as he guides him to the Captain’s Quarters. Chewie hesitates for a beat, taking in your prone body on the cot, a low whine emitting from his mouth before he bends to gently pick you up.

Poe watches numbly as the Wookiee easily carries you out of the room, careful not to jostle your injuries. The adrenaline of the day’s events has leaked out of his body, leaving him exhausted, but his feet move on their own accord, staying close to Chewie.

Beaumont is waiting at the end of the landing ramp, bouncing on his heels. Major Kalonia stands behind him, looking calmer, but Poe recognizes the surge of fear in her eyes when she sees you. Automatically, she’s giving out orders to Chewie and Beaumont, guiding them both toward the medbay.

Poe doesn’t follow, stops mid-stride as they disappear inside the room. All around, officers are jostling past him, up into the Falcon to carry out the supplies you’d successfully retrieved, but nothing about this feels successful to him. 

Failing the ones he cared about was one of the few things that truly, deeply scared Poe Dameron. It kept him awake at night, and he’d vowed to keep you safe - and he’d failed that, failed in his duty of care for you, all because you took a shot meant for  _ him.  _

“Poe?”

He blinks, coming out of his reverie, and realizes Rose is standing in front of him. She looks concerned, and he wonders how long she’s been trying to speak with him. “Yeah?” He manages, voice barely above a croak. His cheeks feel wet - was he crying?

Rose steps forward, taking his arm gently. “Come on.”

Poe lets himself be taken away, though he isn’t entirely sure where Rose is leading him. It dawns on him eventually that it’s  _ Rose _ , which means she and Finn are back from their mission, which means -

He’s nearly taken down at the knees by a blur of orange and white.

Poe breaks out into a wet laugh, dropping down to greet BB-8. The droid nestles against him instantly, and Poe wraps his arms awkwardly around the droid, bringing his forehead to BB-8’s domed head. The droid warbles out a question, and Poe whispers back, “Mission went south, buddy.”

BB-8 wheels back, dome tilting in concern. Poe drops his head, “Y/N got hurt.”

The droid releases a mournful whistle, head dipping down in a mirror of Poe’s, then it bumps against Poe’s knees, like a sympathetic pat. 

“BB-8’s right,” Rose murmurs from behind him, tentatively reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. “She’ll be okay.”

Poe looks up at Rose, “She wouldn’t have gotten into this if it weren’t for me.”

Rose frowns, then bends down beside Poe. “What do you mean?”

“We got ambushed and she - she took that blast for  _ me.  _ I should be the one in the medbay, or worse, not her. I don’t understand why she’d do that -” he cuts himself off, grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I'm not worth that.”

Rose watches him carefully, rubbing circles across his back in an effort to soothe him, as she tries to measure her words, figure out what is the best thing to say to him. She knows a thing or two about taking shots meant for somebody else, after all. “Because that’s what this is about, saving what we love. You’re her best friend, she loves you, and you  _ are _ worth saving, Poe.” 

“Yeah, but how’s that fair when I can’t save  _ her _ ?” Poe asks quietly, sinking back onto his bottom. 

Rose frowns and settles down lotus-style beside him. “You did, though. You got her out of there, brought her home. Kalonia and Beaumont will have her back up in no time, just you wait.” 

Poe holds her gaze for a beat, then nods glumly. “Yeah, yeah I know I just -” he exhales shakily, “I just got her back.”

It wasn’t a secret that the two of you had been estranged for the past three months, and Rose reckons she’s probably the only person who knows why - you’d confided in her once, over a shared drink, how scared you were of losing Poe and how every time you saw him you got angry all over again for how easily he threw himself into harm’s way because you couldn’t imagine your life without him.

Looking at Poe, Rose realizes that feeling is shared by him.

“You’re not gonna lose her, alright? You two are inseparable, there’s no force in this galaxy that’s gonna keep the two of you from coming back for each other.” Rose assures him, “It might take some time, but you will always fall back into each other’s orbit.”

Poe sighs, looking past her and BB-8. “I hope you’re right, Rose.”

* * *

You wake up slowly, eyelids fluttering heavily. You catch a glimpse in between blinks of your familiar workspace, back on Ajan Kloss. A sense of disappointment settles in the pit of your stomach, as you disorientedly wonder if the adventure between you and Poe had merely been something you’d dreamt after dozing off while counting supplies -

But when you shift, pain flares through your body. You snap your eyes open and glance down at your torso, hand clasping instinctively over where you were shot - which doesn’t help, actually, and only makes the pain worse. 

You let out a hiss of air, letting your head fall back onto the pillow. Definitely not a dream then. You  _ were _ back on Ajan Kloss, which meant the mission had at least gone semi-successfully and you’d gotten the fuel you needed -

Inhaling slowly through your nostrils, you shift on the bed and open your eyes again, trying to catch your bearings even as your exhausted brain struggles to recall everything that happened: you’d been caught in an ambush, you’d thrown yourself in front of Poe to save him, he’d shot the stormtrooper that’d shot you, and then -

Nothing. You had a vague recollection of him shouting your name, of being carried to a ship, but the rest was blank. 

The medbay is quiet, save the thrum of the necessary equipment keeping vitals. You don’t spy anyone in the room with you, which...stings more than you want to think about. Everyone had duties to attend to, they couldn’t just sit around for you to wake up, but you’d think Poe would at  _ least _ be here - a new thought forces you into an upright position, heartrate spiking not just from the pain of the movement, but from fear. Poe had made it, right? He had to, how else would you have made it back to Ajan Kloss?

Panic grips you, throwing all sense of rational thinking to the wind, and you swing your legs off the cot you’ve been laid up in for maker knows how long. Your legs are shaky when you try to stand on them and you nearly tumble to the floor, but you catch yourself on the wall, and start to dart forward - you have to know -

You make it three steps before you’re teetering forward again, but you don’t land on your face, because a figure happens to round the corner just as you start to fall. “Whoa, whoa -” Poe cries, catching you quickly as you fall against his chest, “What are you doing up?” 

Your heart is still drumming soundly against your ribcage as you look up at him, unable to keep the relief and reverence off your face as you grip his tunic lightly. Your vision blurs, and you bring a shaking hand to cup his cheek, “I didn’t see you when I woke up, I was - I didn’t know if you were okay.”

Something indefinable but soft passes across Poe’s handsome features, and he stammers when he replies, “You - you should be - ah, hell.” He brings you in closer, and you succumb to the hug with a low sob. He presses a kiss to the crown of your head, then to the side of your head, then he’s nuzzling his face into your neck, bringing his hands up and down your spine.

“I love you,” you murmur against his shirt, but you’re certain you’ve said it so lowly that he doesn’t catch it. 

He does, though, and he draws back with wide, sparkling eyes, “Me too.”

You grin and start to stretch up on your tiptoes to show him just that, but immediately wince when it flares your injury. The smile on Poe’s face immediately fades into concern, and he’s guiding you back to the cot with gentle hands, “But I love you even more when you’re not half-dead from a blaster wound.”

“I’m not half-dead,” you protest as you climb back onto the cot. You leave enough room for him on it, so he sits down on the edge of the bed next to you. “It’s only a minor injury. Suralinda’s was much worse, and she was up in a matter of hours.”

Poe’s smile is tight when he replies slowly, like he’s both fondly exasperated by you and also trying not to laugh, “Suralinda is a different species from you. Humans don’t bounce back quite like Squamatans do.”

You only blow a raspberry in response. “I’m still not half-dead.”

“I thought you were,” Poe replies suddenly, all humor gone from his voice. You swallow and meet his eyes, and hate the pain you find in them. Pain that’s there because of  _ you.  _ But what was the alternative? Losing him?  _ Unacceptable _ . “When I caught you, I thought - I thought you were gone.”

You reach out for his hand and he takes it, threading your fingers together. “I’m sorry that I scared you, but I had to do something. You would’ve done the same.”

“In a heartbeat,” Poe agrees. He looks down, “Now I understand it, why you were so mad at me, why you were so afraid. I’m sorry I put you through this, too.”

You smile grimly, “You didn’t run, though. You’re a step ahead of me.”

“It’s not a competition, Y/L/N,” Poe retorts dryly and you laugh, which makes him smile wide, the weight of the past few days slipping away from him immediately. How he’s missed that laugh. 

“I think it’s just a part of the job description,” you tell him once your laughter subsides. You squeeze his hand, “Neither of us can stand back when other people are in trouble. I get why you throw yourself into danger like you do now, I may not  _ like _ it...but I get it.”

You both fall silent, letting your words wash over. Finally, Poe asks quietly, “So where does that leave us? That’s not -” he groans, scrubbing his face. “Sorry, this isn’t a conversation we should be having now, you just woke up -”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you tell him firmly. “I made a promise on a rooftop a long time ago that I’m going to be the person who stays for you, and...I almost broke that a couple of times. I’m not going to anymore, you’re stuck with me flyboy. I mean it.”

“Good, because...I can’t imagine my life without you in it either. I don’t wanna.”

You smile wide and pull his hand up to your lips to press a feather-light kiss to his knuckles, “See? We’re better than back to normal, now.”

Poe’s smile is more beautiful than bottled starlight.

* * *

But that's not the  _ only _ conversation you need to have, you realize, when you remember the strange look on Poe's face when you met with Firith - but aside from learning that Firith had escaped from the First Order safely just like you and Poe, your favorite flyboy was remaining tight-lipped about the trip to Lothal.

Which, fine, you  _ had  _ almost died in his arms there, that was a valid enough reason to avoid discussing things relevant to it, but you'd played this game before and you had  _ no _ interest in moving forward with running from scary feelings ever again. You were done avoiding problems, you wanted to tackle them head-on. 

Which also makes you a pain to deal with while recovering from your injuries. So far, in the last two weeks, you've managed to be scolded by just about every person on base for not abiding by the suggestion of bed rest: you're pretty certain that Poe is one day away from siccing Leia on you, so you try to avoid getting busted by him as much as you can while you clock in extra hours in the medbay - but then Kalonia all but banishes you from it, so you wander the base looking for something else to do.

You can't help it, you're  _ bored. _

You end up by the ships, specifically by Poe's ship. It's easily distinguishable from the others by the orange paint job. It was a new replacement, didn't have a name yet, and you're strangely sentimental for  _ Black One _ as you run a hand along the side of the hull. 

“You know,” an amused and familiar voice says from behind you, “I hear bedrest works best when the person is actually  _ in _ a bed.”

You turn around with a grin, finding Poe standing with his hands on his hips, returning the expression easily. He’s in his flight suit and it stands out among all the green. You’ve missed seeing him in it, you realize. “Kalonia said I could do little walks here and there,” you inform him, poking him lightly in the chest as he sidles up in front of you, his hands finding their way to your waist. “So here I am, here and there.”

Poe hums in acknowledgment, “You were looking for me right?”

You tilt your head back, making a show of thinking over his question. “I was looking for this really brave, sweet guy who’s constantly throwing himself into dangerous missions for the people he loves and the cause he serves, who really loves the color orange. Have you seen a guy like that?”

“I’m not sure I’d describe him like  _ that _ -” Poe starts, but then presses his lips into a thin line when you bend down to affectionately pat BB-8 on the dome. “Ah, I see. I’ve been replaced.”

You look up at him with a grin as BB-8 chirps an affirmative, making you both laugh. “You’ve got quite the little playdroid here, Poe Dameron.”

“Don’t I know it,” Poe says with a shake of his head as you stand back up. His smile fades to a look of gentle concern as he runs his hands up your arms. “Are you doing better, though?”

“It’s been...hard,” you admit shyly. Out of everyone on the base, so far Poe is the only person aware of the nightmares that sometimes wakes you from a deep sleep - of the sound of blaster fire and a piercing fire in your chest, the utter look of panic on Poe’s face etched permanently in your memory. “Physically, I’m getting better, but..it’s just going to take some time.”

“You’ll get there,” Poe promises, leaning in to press a kiss to your forehead. You sigh against the contact. “The first time I almost died, I had nightmares for a long time. Still do, sometimes, but the pain...eases eventually.”

You manage a smile, “I know it will, thanks, Poe.” 

“Always,” he says, squeezing your shoulder. 

“Is there any reason you’re out here in your flight suit?” You ask, taking a step back from him and folding your arms. 

Poe bounces on the back of his heels, “Yeah, actually. See, I promised this girl to show her how to fly a couple of weeks ago, and since she’s been cleared to walk around a little bit...thought I might show her the ropes.”

Your cheeks warm, “Oh, really?”

“Really,” Poe confirms. “I asked Major Kalonia if it would be okay and she said it would, so long as nothing too exciting happens while we’re up there. We wouldn’t leave the atmosphere, but -”

You grab him by the lapels and press a kiss to his cheek. “I’d like that a lot, Poe.”

* * *

“So tell me again why I’m sitting in your lap?” You ask, craning your neck to look at Poe behind you while you work to keep the ship steady. 

His cheeks are dark when he replies, “I don’t have a two-seater.”

“No, but you could have just requested a second X-Wing for me to fly,” you press, flexing your fingers around the joystick as you focus on gliding the new X-Wing over Ajan Kloss’ jungles. “But you didn’t, why?”

BB-8 warbles something in response before Poe can, the translation coming up quickly on the monitor before you, though you don’t require it. You know binary just as well as Poe does. You smile, “Oh,  _ really _ ?”

“Look is it a crime that I wanted to keep an eye out on you?” Poe asks from behind you, and you laugh at how hard he’s trying to sound grumpy about yours and BB-8’s teasing, but you can hear the smile in his voice. “You’re still injured, technically, and with you being in the same ship as me, I can keep an eye on you while you show me what you learned from Jess.”

You shake your head, “You’re adorable, Poe Dameron.”

“And you’re a damn good pilot,” he says, perching his chin on your shoulder. “You sure you’re telling me the truth that Jess only taught you the basics? That you’ve only done a couple of training sessions? That you’ve never stepped foot in a flight academy? Because you’re a  _ natural. _ ”

“Cross my heart -”

“Don’t you  _ dare _ finish that sentence.”

“Too soon?”

“Yes, Y/N, two weeks is  _ too soon. _ ”

“Sorry,” you say, genuinely apologetic as Poe buries his face into the crook of your neck. “All Jess taught me was which controls not to press and the basic maneuvers - nothing too fancy and definitely no fun moves like you do.”

You feel a laugh rumble through Poe’s chest, “You’re not going to learn any of my fun moves today, if I did that, Major Kalonia would definitely kill me. The strain would be too much on your injury.”

“You’re not wrong, but it would be nice to do at least one barrel roll.”

“I’d rather you not hurt yourself, sweetheart.” Poe informs you gently, “We’ll have plenty of time to learn the fun stuff later, like the backward tailslide.” Now he sounds outright  _ giddy,  _ and you can’t contain the dorky smile that breaks across your face.

Then you realize that the perfect opportunity to really  _ talk  _ has quite literally landed in your - or rather, Poe’s - lap and you decide to take it. “So, uh, we never got around to talking about what happened on Lothal. Pre...getting shot, I mean.”

Poe’s voice is deceptively neutral when he replies, “What do you mean?”

“You said I’d given you plenty to think about and you were acting...weird around Firith. What was up with that?” As you’re met with silence, you track a flock of birds taking off in the distance with your eyes.

“It was a lot to take in,” Poe says finally, “I thought I knew everything about you and then you’re standing there talking about run-ins with TIE Fighters and Crimson Dawn…it was like…” he trails off, then tries again, “Zorii kept a big secret from me, too. I know you’re not her, obviously, but I just - got scared.”

You take in his words and twist them over in your head. From what you’ve learned about this Zorii and her crew, you’d really love to give them a piece of your mind, but that’s beside the point. You ask, “What do you want to know about Firith and me?” 

“What?”

“I’m not gonna keep secrets from you, not when we’re finally back together and we’re building something  _ good.  _ So ask me whatever it is you want.”

Warmth floods through Poe’s chest at how easily you offer it to him, and he presses a kiss to the side of your head, overwhelmed by how much the gesture means to him. “How’d you two meet?”

You smile wide. “I got lost one day in a market when I was around nine. Firith found me, treated me to some fruits before he finally found my parents. I don’t think he quite liked them, so he told me where I could find him if I got lost again. He practically helped raise me, I’m not sure I’d be who I am now if it weren’t for him. He’d tell me all these wild stories of his adventures, and supported me when I decided to become a medic - especially since after I started training, I kind of became his unofficial medteam. He’d come to me for help if he got injured on a job. That’s what the business with the Crimson Dawn agent was, by the way. He turned up at my doorstep half-dead when I was just barely a year into training. I had no idea if I could keep him alive or not, but...somehow I did. I told him he owed me a lifetime of favors for that stunt.”

Poe listens intently as you stare out of the canopy, both lost in memory yet utterly focused on flying his X-Wing. “What about the TIE fighter incident?”

“I didn’t fly one if that’s what you’re asking. There was this old shipyard Firith was gonna salvage from, and he asked if I wanted to come along. I went with him and while he was looking around, I kind of -” you cut yourself off, suddenly embarrassed.

“You what?” Poe presses, excited. “C’mon, don’t leave me hanging.”

“You’ll never let me live it down.”

“Now  _ why  _ would I do that?” Poe asks, shifting his hands on your waist. He hadn’t looped his arms entirely around you in fear of your injury, but you couldn’t deny you enjoyed the feeling of his warmth against your waist as he held you lightly.

“I found an old thermal detonator,” you continue sheepishly. “I didn’t think it’d still be  _ working _ , and I accidentally...um….armed it. The second I realized what I did, I just hurled it away from me as far as I could. Apparently, I’ve got a mean swing, because it landed just under the TIE Fighter that Firith was planning on selling for some extra credits…”

Poe bursts out laughing as he sees where the rest of the story is going, “You blew up a TIE Fighter by accident? Maker, I love you.”

You grin. “It  _ was _ a really pretty explosion. Lots of colors, Firith reckoned it was some kind of modified detonator.”

“You blow up TIE fighters, you’re a damn good shot, you can fly an X-Wing...you know, you never fail to impress me.” 

You twist your head so that you can face Poe properly, his chin still resting on your shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he confirms with a lopsided smile. He looks  _ happy,  _ content, and you swear you’ve never seen anyone more beautiful. So, you tip your head forward and gently meet his lips with your own. 

It’s a languid kiss full of warmth and appreciation for each other; Poe’s hands tighten at your waist, fingertips catching at the hem of your tunic, and you sigh against his lips as you draw back slowly, meeting his eyes shyly. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”

“You can do it anytime you want,” he tells you, leaning in to press another peck to your lips. The moment, however, is ruined by a haughty set of beeps from BB-8. “Okay, maybe  _ not _ when you’re supposed to be piloting.” Poe concedes to the droid and you turn back to the controls to begin the flight back to base.

Poe leans into your ear and whispers so BB-8 won’t hear, “Though I definitely don’t mind if you do.”

“Mn, I think you’ll mind if I crash your ship because you’ve distracted me.”

“I’m distracting now?” Poe asks, sounding gleefully mischievous. He’s still playing with the hem of your tunic. 

“You’re always distracting,” you reply easily. “It’s part of your thing, Dameron.”

“What about me is distracting?” He asks, leaning his head back against the seat.

You consider for a moment, then, “The hair.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Just the hair?”

“I’ve grown accustomed to your face, too, if that’s what you want to hear.”

The laugh that bubbles out of his throat is so light and free that you almost kiss him again right then, but you manage to wait until you’ve touched down back at base. You push the canopy open and hop over the lip of the cockpit, slide down the technician’s ladder, and wait for Poe to follow suit. Unlike you, he just hops down from the cockpit to the ground, ignoring the ladder entirely - that is until you guide him against it, pressing your lips soundly against his.

After all, some things really didn’t need saying - they needed  _ showing _ , and you were more than willing to show him every day how much he meant to you, how much you loved him; and he was more than willing to do exactly the same.


End file.
